El-Mouka v (1) Ramsy Property Ltd (2) Home Connect Ltd. Romford County Court, 8th August 2025 (note of judgment here)

This was a County Court appeal against a possession order and a refusal to stay eviction on a private tenancy. It is a rarity because it concerns section 18 Housing Act 1988, which has surprisingly little case law on it. It is also an example of how things can go wrong in a busy county court application list. And lastly, it possibly features private landlords attempting a cunning wheeze, which also, in the end, goes badly wrong.

Ms El-Mouka had an assured shorthold tenancy of Flat 17 City House, 9 Cranbrook Road, Ilford, which began in 2019. Her immediate landlord was Home Connect Limited. The property owner was Ramsy Property Ltd. Ramsy had apparently given Home Connect a tenancy of the flat under a ‘guaranteed rent agreement’ – so a ‘rent to rent’ set up. However, the relationship between Ramsy and Home Connect was a bit murkier than that. As the appellant’s skeleton argument pointed out

“What is curious is that Home Connect and Ramsy Property share the same registered address at Companies House. Both companies also share Mylvaganam Mahadevan as a director. In other words, the litigation appears to have been between two related companies.”

In December 2023, Ramsy had issued possession proceedings against Home Connect, after a notice to quit was allegedly served on Home Connect on 1 August 2023. A possession order was made against ‘Home Connect and any other occupiers’ on 1 May 2024.

Ms E-M was blissfully unaware of this. The possession claim, and notices had not been served on her or the property. The first she knew of it was when a notice of eviction was served on the property (dated November 2024, but received in February 2025), with an eviction date of 4 March 2025.

Ms E-M sought assistance and was referred to Safer Renting (for anyone who doesn’t know, Safer Renting are an excellent set up that now provides TRO services for a number of London Boroughs, amongst other things).

Safer Renting helped her prepare a witness statement and an application to suspend the warrant. Crucially, the witness statement raised section 18 HA 1988.

A Safer Renting caseworker attended the hearing of the application on 3 March 2025 with Ms E-L. The caseworker had no rights of audience, which she was clear about to the Judge. Unfortunately, what followed was not edifying.

The Deputy District Judge rejected the application. From the transcript

“So this is an application to suspend a warrant which is due to be executed tomorrow. (Can you translate, please?) And I do not have power to make the order that I am being asked to make. The situation is that property owners often grant leases of their properties to management companies. When the landlord wants the property back, he serves them with notice to quit, and that notice is effective to determine not only the tenancy with the management company, but also any tenancies which an agency have granted. The possession order is effective against anyone who is in occupation of the property. So in the circumstances I do not have the power to make the order I am being asked to make”.

The caseworker asked the DDJ if he had seen the witness statement and he replied:

“I’m afraid it does not matter (…) I have not got the witness statement, no, but the fact is that this is a common situation: I do not have power to make the order I am being asked to make. Legally, I have explained the situation. The tenancy is brought to an end by notice to quit served by the owner of the property to the managing agent and that brings to an end all subtenancies as a matter of law, and they are entitled to possession. A possession order was made by me, I notice, back on 8th May of last year. The order for possession would have provided for possession in 14 days, which it did. The court’s power is limited to an extension if it is satisfied that the defendant would suffer exceptional hardship other than for six weeks from date of order and that has already gone.

CASEWORKER: But, because of section 18 of the Housing Act 1988, I would have
thought that authorised subtenancies become the direct tenant of the —-

JUDGE PERRY: No; that is not the way it works. The tenancy is determined by notice to quit.

CASEWORKER: So how would section 18 of the Housing Act 1988 come into it, then?

JUDGE PERRY: It does not.

CASEWORKER: It is an authorised subtenancy of the head tenancy.

JUDGE PERRY: It does not come into it. It does not come into it. The possession order is a valid possession order. It is made on a mandatory ground and the landlord is entitled to possession. So I have to dismiss the application and the warrant will go ahead tomorrow.

CASEWORKER: Please may I ask —-

JUDGE PERRY: No; you have not got right of audience, as you correctly said. I am not prepared to hear from you. Thank you all.

MS EL-MOUKA: Have you received the witness statement as well?

JUDGE PERRY: No, I have not received the witness statement, but it is not of any relevance because of the circumstances I have just explained”.

The application was dismissed.

Ms E-L appealed, with representation, on grounds that:

i) the DDJ erred in law in respect of CPR 39.3 in with regard to Ms E-L’s failure to attend the possession hearing and in view of the defence of section 18 of the Housing Act 1988; and

ii) there was serious procedural irregularity.

Section 18 HA 1988 provides:

“(1) If at any time—
(a) a dwelling-house is for the time being lawfully let on an assured tenancy, and
(b) the landlord under the assured tenancy is himself a tenant under a superior tenancy; and
(c) the superior tenancy comes to an end,
then, subject to subsection (2) below, the assured tenancy shall continue in existence as a tenancy held of the person whose interest would, apart from the continuance of the assured tenancy, entitle him to actual possession of the dwelling-house at that time”.

The appeal was upheld in short order.

Ms E-L had a good reason for not attending trial – she did not know of it.

She had acted promptly when she did know of it.

She clearly had a reasonable prospect of success at trial, indeed an unanswerable case. The operation of section 18 meant that when Ramsy terminated Home Connect’s tenancy, Ramsy became Ms E-L’s direct landlord on the assured shorthold tenancy. None of the exceptions in s.18(2) applied.

On the serious procedural irregularity, the DDJ had made a serious error in not reading the witness statement, which explained why the criteria under CPR 39.3 for setting aside the possession order were met and the operation of section 18.

I find that the DDJ’s order is vitiated by serious procedural error in failing to read the caseworker’s statement in support of the application because that statement explained why the criteria for setting aside the possession order were met. I allow the appeal on ground 2 in addition.

Appeal allowed, possession order set aside, possession claim dismissed. Indemnity costs to Ms E-L in the appeal and below.

Comment

A busy application list in a County Court, with maybe 10-15 mins for each hearing, is obviously very pressured environment, with little time for detailed consideration. But the DDJ rejecting the application without even reading the statement filed in support of it, and apparently on the basis of their firm conviction that they knew how termination of an interim lease affected the sub-tenants, is disappointing. Granted, section 18 doesn’t come up in proceedings very often (presumably because superior landlords get told how it works), but it should at least have given the DDJ pause that a defence of operation of statute was being raised.

And then, apparently related companies, with the same director, in a landlord and tenant ‘rent to rent’ contract, and then one bringing a possession claim against the other? While not serving the sub-tenant? Consider my eyebrows raised. I imagine Home Connect did not defend the possession proceedings very vigorously, if at all.