Owner must prove a protected lease existed before 1995

The First Hall of the Civil Court (Constitutional Jurisdiction) gave judgment on 18 May 2026 in C.S. vs L.J., a landlord's constitutional claim, and dismissed it. Madam Justice Rachel Montebello held that the owner had proved his title but not a lease protected by the Reletting of Urban Property (Regulation) Ordinance (Chapter 69 of the Laws of Malta). Without that proof, the claim that the rent laws breached his property rights could not succeed.

The facts

The owner's son brought the case on his father's behalf in February 2024 against the State Advocate and the two occupiers of a house the father owned. He argued that the occupiers held a lease from 15 April 1989, protected by Chapter 69, at €185 a year, and that Chapter 69 and article 1531C of the Civil Code breached article 1 of the First Protocol. The father died while the case was pending, and another person took over the proceedings.

The State Advocate pleaded that the applicant must prove both his title and a lease protected by Chapter 69. The occupiers did not file a reply. A court-appointed architect estimated the rental value of the house from 1987 to 2021.

What the court held

On title, the court was satisfied. A deed of division of 1988 gave the father the property subject to a relative's usufruct, and a deed of 1989 gave him that usufruct. The two merged by confusio, the union of bare ownership and usufruct in one person, so he became full owner from 23 January 1989.

The lease was a different matter. The so-called rent book was a list the applicant had prepared, signed by no one who received rent, and an unauthenticated photocopy that no witness explained. The electoral register extract bore no date and showed only that the occupiers lived there at some point.

The son's affidavit said his father let the house in 1989, but it came with no lease, receipts or other documents. His affidavit also gave a different rent, €372.68 a year. The court found that no evidence tied the owner, as landlord, to the occupiers as tenants.

The court held that the burden lay on the applicant to prove, on a balance of probabilities, that a lease existed, that it began before June 1995 and that Chapter 69 protected it. That proof was indispensable, because the whole complaint rests on the owner being landlord under a protected lease. The burden was heavier still because the State Advocate had contested the point in his reply.

It applied article 559 of the Code of Organization and Civil Procedure: “Il-qorti għandha fil-każijiet kollha tordna li ssirilha l-aħjar prova li l-parti tista' ġġib.” (The court shall in all cases require the best evidence that the party can produce.)

Even without the written lease, the applicant could have produced the rent book or receipts for the whole period, called the occupiers to testify, or filed electoral extracts showing that they lived there from 1989. He did none of these.

The court accepted the second limb of the State Advocate's first plea and took no further cognisance of the first limb, on title. It dismissed all the claims without reaching the merits of the property complaint. The applicant pays all costs.

Why it matters

Where the State Advocate contests the lease, a landlord cannot rely on records he prepared himself. Before filing, the landlord's lawyer should gather a signed rent book or receipts reaching back before June 1995, electoral register extracts across the years, or plan to summon the tenants. A strong case on rental value is lost if the tenancy itself is not proved.

Where it sits

The claim is the familiar rent-law action under article 1 of the First Protocol, which asks whether a control of the use of property strikes a fair balance. That question arises only once the court is satisfied that the lease falls under the special rent laws. The best-evidence rule in article 559 governs that proof, as in any civil case.

The court relied on four judgments of the Constitutional Court: 22 January 2024, on the burden to show a lease began before 1995; 12 January 2026, on proving when a lease started through the tenants' receipts or electoral extracts; 22 June 2023, on the best-evidence rule where the start of the lease is contested; and 23 June 2025, on an applicant's failure to bring the best evidence.

Source

First Hall of the Civil Court (Constitutional Jurisdiction), 49/2024, 18 May 2026: 49/2024