Andrew Rees v Beth Atyeo

An appeal from a Rent Assessment Committee in Wales under Rent Act 1977 section 65A is an unrestricted appeal on a point of law; permission is not required. The amount of rent is ordinarily a question of fact and is not appealable absent a serious flaw in the decision-making process. Where a Rent Assessment Committee inspects the dwelling, the inspection must be undertaken by the committee as a whole. One member acting alone is not the committee. Each member must have access to the whole of the evidence and participate in the determination. A solo inspection was therefore a serious procedural defect, requiring the rent determination to be set aside and the application remitted to a differently constituted committee.

Mr Rees appealed against a Rent Assessment Committee’s determination of a new rent for his converted contract dwelling in Wales. The Committee had determined the rent at £925 per month after considering the property’s condition, damp and mould, compliance issues and comparable rental evidence. One of the two committee members had inspected the property without the chair before the hearing.

The appeal raised whether permission was required, whether the Committee’s rent assessment could be challenged as an error of law, and whether the inspection by one member invalidated the determination.

1. Right of appeal. Section 65A of the Rent Act 1977 provides a right of appeal on a point of law from a Rent Assessment Committee and does not require permission. The 2022 Regulations contain no permission requirement. The position is analogous to the appeal from the Agricultural Land Tribunal in Wales considered in Adams v Jones [2021] UKUT 9 (LC).
2. Scope of review. The Tribunal could not reassess the level of rent. The rent at which a property might reasonably be expected to let is a question of fact. There is no appeal against such a finding unless the decision-making process contains a serious flaw. Case-management complaints about late evidence would rarely amount to an error of law, provided the hearing was fair.
3. Inspection. Regulation 7(1) of the Rent Assessment Committees (England and Wales) Regulations 1971 permits the committee to inspect the dwelling. In that context, “the committee” means the entire committee constituted under paragraph 5 of Schedule 10 to the Rent Act 1977. Inspection was an important part of the proceedings because it enabled the decision-makers to assess condition, improvements, alleged breaches and comparable value.
4. Defect and disposal. Committee decision-making required the participation and concurrence of the whole committee, subject to majority decision-making where a three-person committee was constituted. Each member therefore had to have equal access to the whole evidence. The inspection by only the valuer member was a serious procedural defect, and the parties did not receive the decision of the whole committee on all aspects of the dispute. The decision was set aside and the application remitted to a differently constituted committee for redetermination.

• Upper Tribunal (Lands Chamber): The appeal from the Rent Assessment Committee was allowed. The Committee’s decision was set aside and the application was remitted to a differently constituted committee for redetermination.