Tagro v Cafane

Under sections 27 and 28 of the Housing Act 1988, a landlord who unlawfully evicts a residential occupier may be liable for damages assessed by the increase in the value of the landlord’s interest resulting from the loss of the tenant’s right to occupy.

Reinstatement requires more than the provision of a key. The tenant must be restored to occupation in a realistic sense. A tenant may choose whether to accept reinstatement. An offer made after proceedings to enforce the statutory liability have begun cannot ordinarily engage the reduction provision in section 27(7)(b).

The tenant occupied a bedsitting-room under a tenancy granted by the landlord, who himself held the building from Lambeth London Borough Council. The landlord changed the locks with the intention of evicting her. After obtaining an injunction for readmission, she was given a key, but the premises were damaged, insecure and unsuitable for renewed occupation.

The Lambeth County Court awarded £31,000 under sections 27 and 28 of the Housing Act 1988, together with separate damages for trespass to her belongings. The landlord appealed only against the statutory award. The issues were whether the tenant had been reinstated, whether the landlord could rely on the statutory reduction provisions, and whether the valuation evidence supported the amount awarded.

1. Appeal dismissed. The landlord’s liability under section 27(3) was established. The tenant had not been reinstated within section 27(6), because handing her a key to a defective lock and inviting her to return to a wrecked room did not restore her to occupation in any realistic sense.
2. A tenant unlawfully evicted under section 27 has a choice whether to accept an offer of reinstatement. The statute gives no basis for treating reinstatement as compulsory. This is consistent with the statutory purpose of preventing the landlord from benefiting from the tenant’s removal, since section 28 measures damages by the increase in the value of the landlord’s interest.
3. Section 27(7)(a) concerns conduct by the former residential occupier which makes mitigation reasonable. It had no application. Section 27(7)(b) concerns an offer of reinstatement made before proceedings to enforce the statutory liability were begun. The court expressed the view, obiter on these facts, that proceedings for an injunction begun before the statutory claim was added by amendment were not necessarily proceedings to enforce liability under sections 27 and 28.
4. Under section 28(1), damages are assessed by comparing the value of the landlord’s interest with and without the tenant’s right to occupy, at the time immediately before the tenant ceased to occupy. Section 28(3) requires assumptions including an open-market sale to a willing buyer. It does not require the interest to be treated as virtually inalienable merely because the tenancy was monthly and contained restrictions on assignment and subletting.
5. The trial judge was entitled to accept the unchallenged expert valuation evidence. The Court of Appeal would not substitute its own unsupported view of property values or give the landlord a further opportunity to call evidence which he had declined to produce at trial. Russell LJ and Nolan LJ agreed. The appeal was dismissed with costs, subject to the stated enforcement and legal-aid taxation orders.

• Court of Appeal: Dismissed the landlord’s appeal against the Lambeth County Court’s award of £31,000 under sections 27 and 28 of the Housing Act 1988. Russell LJ and Nolan LJ agreed with Lord Donaldson of Lymington MR.
• Lambeth County Court: His Honour Judge Simpson awarded the tenant £31,000 for unlawful eviction on 24 November 1989, together with separate damages for trespass to her belongings.