Tenant who uses farmland for leisure loses the qbiela

The Court of Appeal (Inferior Jurisdiction) held on 6 May 2026 that a tenant who uses rented farmland mainly for leisure and hunting breaks the conditions of the lease. Mr Justice Lawrence Mintoff allowed the landlords' appeal from the Rural Leases Control Board. He ordered the tenants to leave the field within 40 days.

The facts

In G.M. vs Z.A., three owners of a field of about 9,000 square metres asked the board to let them take it back. The field was let to Z.A. under a qbiela, a rural lease, at €15 a year.

The owners argued that the land had been let for farming but was being used for hunting and bird trapping, with eucalyptus trees planted to attract birds. The tenant and his wife argued that the field was farmed and well kept, and that the trees covered only a small part.

On 14 July 2025 the board rejected the owners' demands. It found that farming remained the main use and that the land was worked regularly.

What the court held

The court said that a court of review does not normally disturb the way a board weighed the evidence. It will do so where the decision would cause a manifest injustice. Here the key evidence was the report of the board's technical members, and its conclusions did not match its own findings.

The technical members found that the whole field had been ploughed a few days before their site visit, leaving no sign of any crop. Eucalyptus trees covered about one-eighth of the land. A structure on the field held a furnished bedroom, a kitchen, a bathroom, a dining area and a barbecue.

The court read the timing of the ploughing against the tenant: “L-aktar mod faċli kif id-detentur ta’ art agrikola jostor in-nuqqas ta’ attività tiegħu fuq l-art, huwa billi jorganizza l-ħart tagħha hekk kif jiġi mgħarraf bl-aċċess” (the easiest way for the holder of farmland to hide his lack of activity is to have it ploughed as soon as he learns of the site visit).

A tenant farming in good faith, the court said, leaves seedlings, roots and other signs of what was growing. Aerial photographs suggesting cultivation could not outweigh the finding that no trace of a crop was found.

The tenant was not registered as a farmer and sold no produce at the Pitkali, the wholesale produce market. The court held that this alone would not make his title invalid. Taken with the technical findings, it showed that he was using the land neither for farming nor as a bonus paterfamilias, the careful administrator the law expects.

The court found that the tenant had broken the conditions of the lease, the ground under article 4(2)(f) of the Agricultural Leases (Reletting) Act (Chapter 199 of the Laws of Malta). On the owners' second ground, that the land was not worked, it held that the tenant had not proved any farming activity and that the main use of the field was recreational or hunting.

It ordered the tenants to pay the costs of both instances.

Why it matters

A board's technical report is read as a whole, and a court will look past its conclusion if the findings point the other way. A tenant who ploughs a field just before a site visit risks having that timing held against him. Landlords should put the structures on the land, the state of the crops and the tenant's registration before the board.

Where it sits

Under article 1554(a) of the Civil Code a tenant must use the thing let as a bonus paterfamilias and for the agreed purpose. Article 1555 lets the landlord seek dissolution where the tenant uses it for another purpose. Chapter 199 adds its own grounds for refusing to renew a rural lease, among them a habitual breach of a lease condition and land left uncultivated.

The board had relied on a line of Court of Appeal judgments, including those of 10 April 2003, 12 July 2007, 10 May 2016 and 17 November 2017. They hold that a side use such as hunting does not change the purpose of a rural lease unless it becomes the main use and farming turns secondary.

The appeal court named no further authority. It decided on the articles and the technical evidence, and found that the recreational use had become the main one.

Source

Court of Appeal (Inferior Jurisdiction), 15/2022/1, 6 May 2026.