Appeals from the Rent Board must be filed within 20 days

The Court of Appeal (Inferior Jurisdiction), Judge Lawrence Mintoff presiding, decided S.S. vs V.S. on 17 June 2026. Two elderly tenants had appealed a Rent Regulation Board judgment that ended their protected lease for non-payment of rent and ordered them out within thirty days. The court never reached the merits: the appeal was filed thirty-one days after the Board's decision, article 24(2) of Chapter 69 allows twenty, and the appeal was declared null.

The facts

The tenants held a house in Ħaż-Żabbar under a lease governed by the Reletting of Urban Property (Regulation) Ordinance, Chapter 69. In earlier proceedings under article 4A of that Ordinance, decided on 5 June 2023 and never appealed, the Board had raised the rent from €215 to €2,800 a year, payable in four instalments. Apart from a minimal sum, nothing was paid at the new rate.

The landlord sent three lawyers' letters in April, July and October 2024 and a judicial letter in December 2024, then asked the Board to declare the tenants in default, authorise him not to renew the lease and fix a term for them to leave. The tenants filed no reply. On 15 April 2025 the Board granted every request, with thirty days to vacate.

The Board's judgment, which the appeal court reproduced at length but did not review, also corrected the landlord's pleading. His judicial letter invoked article 1570 of the Civil Code, but for a lease in force before 1 June 1995 article 1531B keeps the old law and does not list article 1570 among the provisions that apply.

The relevant provision was article 9(a) of Chapter 69, whose demand for payment need take no particular form. The Board found the demand proved, the arrears proved, and no justification offered by tenants who had chosen not to appear.

What the court held

The tenants filed their appeal on 16 May 2025. They conceded their default before the Board but said they had paid what they could, that the landlord had signed receipts, that they had deposited rent in court when he stopped accepting it, and that eviction of two pensioners who had passed the means test was disproportionate. The landlord answered with a single point: the appeal was out of time.

The court took that point first, because it is preliminary and of public order. Chapter 69 is a special law with its own appeal provision. Article 24(2) provides that an appeal from the Board is brought before the Court of Appeal by application "fi żmien għoxrin ġurnata mid-data li fiha d-deċiżjoni tal-Bord tkun ingħatat" (within twenty days from the date on which the Board's decision was given).

Being special, it prevails over any general and less specific rule elsewhere.

The court described the term in these words: "dan it-terminu ipprovdut mill-artikolu 24(2) huwa wieħed perentorju u ta' ordni pubblika, u għalhekk ma jistax jiġi la skużat u lanqas estiż għall-kwalunkwe raġuni, lanqas jekk bi qbil bejn il-partijiet stess" (this term provided by article 24(2) is peremptory and of public order, and so can be neither excused nor extended for any reason, not even by agreement between the parties themselves).

Such terms cannot be waived or altered by the parties, so that the law is certain and uniform.

Counting from 15 April 2025, the last day for filing was Monday 5 May 2025. The appeal came eleven days after that. The court therefore had no choice but to find it "irritu u null" (irregular and null) and to abstain from taking cognisance of it.

The costs of both instances fall on the tenants; the court saw no reason to add any further sanction. Whether the tenants had in fact paid, and whether their default was excusable, was never examined.

Why it matters

The term for appealing a Rent Regulation Board decision is twenty days, not thirty, and it runs from the day the decision is read out, not from notification. Diarise it on the day of judgment; a client who arrives three weeks later has no appeal. For the respondent, the lateness point can be taken in the reply alone and disposes of the whole appeal whatever the merits.

Where it sits

The case applies two rules a student meets early: a special law displaces the general one on the same subject (lex specialis derogat generali), and a term fixed by law for an appeal is peremptory, of public order, and outside the parties' disposal. The court decided on article 24 of Chapter 69 and cited one authority for the second rule, a judgment of the Court of Appeal (Superior Jurisdiction) of 25 January 2023.

The Board's own judgment, quoted in full, maps the substantive law of eviction for arrears under Chapter 69 that the tenants never got to argue: the demand for payment need not be a judicial act and may even be oral (Court of Appeal (Inferior), 2 June 2003 and 3 July 2003); the law penalises not lateness but the ignoring of the demand; and once arrears are proved the tenant bears the burden of showing an objectively reasonable justification (Court of Appeal (Inferior), 17 March 2003 and 23 November 2003).

Source

Court of Appeal (Inferior Jurisdiction), Appeal 3/2025/1, 17 June 2026: 3/2025/1