Coastal Housing Group Limited & Anor v Dawn Mitchell & Anor

Under the Renting Homes (Wales) Act 2016 scheme, a dwelling is treated as unfit for human habitation while a landlord fails to comply with the electrical-safety reporting requirements. The consequence is that rent is not required during the period of non-compliance, even where the electrical condition report was eventually obtained and the dwelling was objectively safe.

Late provision of the report has prospective effect only. It does not retrospectively restore the landlord’s entitlement to rent for the earlier period. The court declined to determine the wider meaning of “dwelling” in relation to communal electrical installations because the issue was not engaged by the facts. It also left the human-rights issue undecided pending determination of the contract-holders’ counterclaims.

These conjoined test claims concerned occupation contracts held by tenants of Welsh registered social landlords. The landlords had obtained electrical condition reports but failed to give them to the contract-holders within the statutory time limits.

The parties asked the Divisional Court to determine five issues: whether non-provision of the reports made rent not payable; whether payment nevertheless remained legally permissible; whether later compliance operated retrospectively; the extent to which reports had to cover communal areas; the date from which written confirmation of electrical works was required; and whether the statutory scheme engaged or breached landlords’ rights under Article 1 of Protocol 1 to the Convention.

1. Issue 1A. The Act and the associated regulations form a single legislative scheme. Regulation 6(6) of the Renting Homes (Fitness for Human Habitation) (Wales) Regulations 2022 applies to the contractual relationship even though its deeming language is not reproduced in the occupation contracts. A dwelling is therefore treated as unfit while the landlord is not compliant with regulation 6, including where the failure is to provide the required electrical condition report. Regulation 11 of the Renting Homes (Supplementary Provisions) (Wales) Regulations 2022 consequently means that rent is not required during that period.
2. Issue 1B. “Not required to pay rent” means that rent is not legally required before or after a payment is made. A payment does not terminate the continuing state of non-requirement. The court expressed no view on any later restitutionary or unjust-enrichment claim.
3. Issue 2. Regulation 6(7)(b) operates prospectively. “From the time” the report is given means from that time onwards, not before it. Late provision therefore ends the deemed unfitness prospectively but does not revive the landlord’s entitlement to rent for the earlier period. Lindsey Trading Properties v Dallhold Estates (UK) Pty Ltd was distinguished because its statutory wording differed. Trecarrell House Ltd v Rouncefield was also distinguished because the statutory definition there excluded the relevant deadline and criminal sanctions supplied the principal enforcement mechanism.
4. Issue 3. The court made no declaration. The starting point was the definition in regulation 6(8), and the extended definition in section 91(2) might also apply through regulation 2, but the factual dispute did not require the question to be resolved.
5. Issue 4. For converted contracts, the “occupation date” in regulation 6(5) is 1 December 2022, the date on which the regulations came into force, or the later date on which occupation began. The one-year grace period expressly provided for regulation 6(3) was not extended to regulation 6(5). The rectifying-construction conditions stated in Inco Europe Ltd v First Choice Distribution were not satisfied.
6. Issue 5. The Article 1 Protocol 1 issue was left undecided. Its determination depended on the facts and on the outcome of the contract-holders’ counterclaims, and the parties’ submissions were incomplete on those matters.