2021 rent reform does not cure a landlord's earlier losses

The Civil Court, First Hall (Constitutional Jurisdiction) held on 10 June 2026 that the owners of two dwellings let before 1 June 1995 suffered a breach of their right to property from 1 January 2009 to 31 May 2021. Madam Justice Rachel Montebello held that the rent reform of 2021 gave an adequate remedy from 1 June 2021 but could not repair the earlier years. The court ordered the State Advocate alone to pay €47,900.

The facts

G.P. vs L.G. was brought by nine co-owners who had inherited shares in two dwellings. Both were let as homes before 1 June 1995 and were protected leases under the Reletting of Urban Property (Regulation) Ordinance (Chapter 69). The owners sued the State Advocate, and the court later joined the tenants as parties.

The owners complained only under article 1 of the First Protocol to the European Convention on Human Rights. They did not rely on article 37 of the Constitution. They accepted that both tenants fell within the income and capital limits set in 2021, and they had applied to the Rent Regulation Board for a rent increase.

A court-appointed architect valued the open-market rent from 2009. For the first dwelling, it rose from €2,450 a year to €5,701 a year, against a controlled rent of €38.44 a year in 2009 and €209 a year by 2021. For the second, it rose from €2,153 a year to €4,384 a year, against a controlled rent of €105 a year rising to €206.50.

What the court held

The court treated rent control as a control of the use of property under the second paragraph of article 1 of the First Protocol. Such control must be lawful, pursue a legitimate aim in the general interest and strike a fair balance between that interest and the owner's rights. The first two tests were met, because the measures came from Chapter 69 and Act X of 2009 and served to protect tenants.

The fair balance failed. The court found no reasonable relation between the controlled rent and the market rent, and it noted the owners' uncertainty over whether they would ever recover the dwellings. Act X of 2009, which set a minimum rent of €185 a year in article 1531C of the Civil Code (Chapter 16), improved the owners' position only slightly.

Until 2021 the law applied no means test, so owners carried a social burden even for tenants who might not need protection.

Act XXIV of 2021 added article 4A to Chapter 69. It lets an owner ask the Rent Regulation Board to set the rent at up to 2% a year of the dwelling's open-market value, and it allows recovery where a tenant fails the means test.

The court held that “mill-introduzzjoni tal-emendi fl-Att XXIV tal-2021 ‘il quddiem, il-Qorti hija sodisfatta li l-atturi ingħataw rimedju xieraq biex jinħelsu mill-piż sproporzjonat li kellhom jerfgħu fis-snin ta’ qabel” (from the introduction of the amendments in Act XXIV of 2021 onwards, the court is satisfied that the plaintiffs were given an adequate remedy to be freed from the disproportionate burden they had to bear in the earlier years).

The reform does not work backwards. The court held that article 4A cannot remedy the years before it came into force, so the owners' complaint for 1 January 2009 to 31 May 2021 was justified.

The tenants were proper parties, because they benefited from the protected leases, but they bore no liability. The court held that they had only used a law passed by the State, which alone must answer for the breach.

For pecuniary damages, the court took the market rent for the period, deducted 30% for the social aim of the law and 20% for the uncertainty that the dwellings would have been let throughout, then deducted the rent received. That gave about €23,700 and €19,200, or €42,900 in total.

Non-pecuniary damages, the court held, are not inherited. It gave none to the co-owner who inherited a share after June 2021, and it set €5,000 overall for the others, noting that no particular hardship had been shown. The State Advocate must pay €47,900 with interest from the date of judgment, and all costs, including the tenants' costs.

Why it matters

An owner of a dwelling let before 1 June 1995 should use article 4A before the Rent Regulation Board for any period after 1 June 2021; a constitutional claim for that period is unlikely to succeed. For earlier years, the claim against the State remains open, with the tenant joined but not liable. A party that disputes a valuation should ask for further experts.

Where it sits

The case applies the three rules of article 1 of the First Protocol: peaceful enjoyment, deprivation and control of use, with control judged by the fair balance test and the question of an excessive individual burden. The court drew those principles from the European Court of Human Rights (19 June 2006). It also cited that court's Maltese rent cases (11 December 2014, 23 October 2018 and 9 June 2020) on the slight effect of the 2009 amendments and the fading social need after 2008.

On article 4A as a remedy, it followed the Constitutional Court (26 October 2022 and 3 March 2025). On who may be sued, it cited the Court of Appeal (5 October 2001). On non-pecuniary damages, it cited the Constitutional Court (12 July 2023), which rejected a fixed rate of €500 a year, and (7 April 2025 and 18 November 2024) on proof of moral damage and its non-inheritance.

Source

Civil Court, First Hall (Constitutional Jurisdiction), 10 June 2026, 634/2021/1