Rent Board cannot hear a lease the defendant never granted
A factory builder evicted after the emphyteusis over Government industrial land was dissolved asked the Board to bind Indis Malta Ltd to his lease from the former emphyteuta under article 1530. With no lease between the parties, the Board declines jurisdiction and refers the case to the Gozo court.
The Rent Regulation Board (Gozo and Comino), Magistrate Franca Giordmaina presiding, decided G.J. vs Indis Malta Ltd on 30 July 2026. A businessman who had built a poultry-processing factory on Government industrial land held by another company on temporary emphyteusis, and who claimed a fifteen-year lease from that company, asked the Board to order Indis Malta Ltd to honour the lease under article 1530 of the Civil Code after the emphyteusis was dissolved and he was evicted.
The Board held that with no lease between the claimant and Indis it has no jurisdiction, and sent the case to the Court of Magistrates (Gozo) in its superior jurisdiction.
The facts
By deed of 24 April 2000 the Malta Development Corporation granted KA.DO.CO (Gozo) Co. Ltd a plot of about 988 square metres in the Xewkija industrial estate on a sixty-five-year temporary emphyteusis; clause 18 forbade any transfer, sub-emphyteusis or lease without the grantor's prior written approval. G.J. agreed with the company's owner, J.B., to take the plot over.
He and his company, Value Foods Co. Ltd, built and equipped the factory at their own expense, paid the ground rent in the emphyteuta's name and occupied the site exclusively; the transfer of shares to him was never completed. A private writing of 28 September 2008 recorded a fifteen-year lease from 1 January 2010 at a rent equal to the ground rent.
Malta Industrial Parks Limited, now Indis Malta Ltd, obtained the dissolution of the emphyteusis for breach of its conditions (Court of Magistrates (Gozo) Superior Jurisdiction, 30 September 2011; Court of Appeal, 12 July 2019). The eviction warrant, which the claimants failed to have revoked (Court of Appeal, 23 November 2020), was executed on 29 December 2020.
The application to the Board followed on 22 February 2021; the claims for damages were withdrawn in April 2025.
What the court held
Indis had pleaded, among other things, that the Board lacks jurisdiction ratione materiae; two lesser preliminary pleas were dismissed.
The claimants argued that the jurisdiction plea, not decided at the outset, had been waived.
The Board agreed that the plea is dilatory and must be raised at the start (Aegis Corporate Services Limited vs Opus Trust Sp. z o.o., Court of Appeal, 29 March 2023), and that the court may raise it of its own motion early on (Chadborn Holdings Ltd vs Tipico Co Ltd, Court of Appeal, 16 January 2025), but Indis had raised it in its very first reply.
The division of competence between courts and tribunals is a matter of public order that the parties cannot agree away (Court of Appeal, 5 April 2013), and competence is fixed by the terms of the claim, read with the pleas (Court of Appeal, 18 June 2024; Rent Regulation Board, 30 October 2024). So the Board had to examine it before any merits.
Article 1525 of the Civil Code and article 16(4) of Chapter 69 give the Board every matter affecting leases of urban property, residential and commercial, including occupation after a lease ends, but reserve "kwistjonijiet dwar il-validità ta' kuntratt ta' kirja" (questions on the validity of a lease contract) to the courts of civil jurisdiction; that is now the only carve-out (Court of Appeal, 12 July 2023).
The claimants' lease was with a third party. Indis was no party to it, had never recognised them, and had told the Court of Appeal in 2020, which accepted, that clause 18 excluded article 1530(1) in the absence of its written approval.
In the Board's words: "Il-kompetenza esklussiva tal-Bord hija fejn ikun hemm kirjiet, iżda kuntratt ta' kera bejn il-partijiet f'dawn il-proċeduri m'hemmx" (the Board's exclusive competence is where there are leases, but a lease contract between the parties to these proceedings there is none). Since the whole claim turned on whether article 1530 made that lease valid against Indis, it fell outside the Board.
The fourth plea was upheld. Because the case had already run five years, the Board gave a decree under article 741(b) of Chapter 12 transferring it to the Court of Magistrates (Gozo) Superior Jurisdiction to decide the merits, with costs three-quarters on the claimants and one-quarter on Indis.
Why it matters
The Board's competence has widened, but it still needs a lease between the parties before it. Where the client's title comes from someone other than the defendant, and the defendant denies being bound, file in the civil courts, or expect a transfer after years of evidence. A jurisdiction plea raised at the outset does not lapse because the tribunal left it for the final judgment.
Where it sits
The substantive claim rests on article 1530 of the Civil Code, which protects a lessee on just conditions when the lessor's title ends and the property returns to the direct owner; the Board did not decide whether it applies, though it noted that the Court of Appeal's judgment of 23 November 2020 in the eviction proceedings had already found clause 18 of the emphyteutical deed in the way.
The decision itself concerns competence: article 1525 of the Civil Code and article 16(4) of Chapter 69 on the Board's jurisdiction, the plea of incompetence as a dilatory plea of public order, and article 741(b) of Chapter 12 on transfer to the competent court.
Source
Rent Regulation Board (Gozo and Comino), sworn application 2/2021, 30 July 2026: 2/2021