Here is a recent housing conditions case that actually reached trial. A rent arrears possession claim with a disrepair counterclaim.

N’Guessan & Anor v Bewry (2026) EWCC 9. I’m not entirely clear why this was given to Bailli, though I suspect there may be an element of a long suffering District Judge going ‘please don’t do this again’.

Ms Bewry was the assured shorthold tenant of the N’Guessans since about 2008. The possession claim, on grounds 8, 10 and 11, turned on whether a section 13 notice increasing the rent from £950 pm to £1200 pm was valid. Ms B had not challenged the notice in court, or the increase in the Tribunal, but had continued to pay £950. By the time of the hearing, arrears were some £9,250.

Ms B had raised some disrepair in 2019 and there was an LA EHO enforcement notice that same year. From emails later in 2019, it appeared that all of these had been addressed save some broken window handles.

There was an inspection by a single joint expert in 2024, which turned out to be quite important on notice, where not otherwise evident.

The Court starts off with issues with evidence and pleadings.

Ms B, through counsel, attempted to advance a case that that the deposit had not been protected, and the How to Rent Guide had not been provided. This got short shrift – the deposit claim, while potentially germane, had simply not been pleaded or referred to in written evidence, and could not fairly be entertained at trial. The How to Rent Guide was irrelevant to a section 8 claim, and anyway the tenancy had begun before 2015.

The claimant had to admit that the ground 8 claim must fail as the arrears at time of service of the notice seeking possession were £1,750, so below the statutory threshold.

The claimant’s evidence was not in itself very convincing.

The First Claimant began by explaining that he was struggling to pay his mortgage. As he gave me his evidence he struck me as a rather vague and approximate landlord, who was sometimes content to ask a contractor to visit to address a problem without taking the trouble to check whether the contractor had actually done so effectively. He appeared unaware of the duty of a landlord to protect a tenancy deposit. In my view, a landlord who rents out residential property is entering into a business transaction: they have gone into business as a landlord. Doing so is a serious business, with serious obligations. A failure to ensure that a rented home is safe can have fatal consequences. The Government has passed a raft of measures which impose obligations on landlords. There are high quality landlords’ associations which can and do provide excellent advice to their members. Being a landlord can generate income in the form of profit – the pursuit of which is normally the reason people become landlords – but can also involve losses when expenses have to be paid, and for which a landlord must make provision. I was not wholly convinced that the First Claimant had fully grasped the breadth of obligations upon him.
(…)
His view is that he always responded to any repairs that he was told about, though he accepted that some contractors had let him down. His general view about this troubled me, because it is inconsistent with the findings of the EHO. I found it hard, in the light of the correspondence and EHO to accept the First Claimant’s generalised assurances that he had always attended to repairs that had been brought to his attention.

But there were other problems with the defendant’s written evidence

Due to some kind of computer glitch, the Defendant’s witness statement contains numerous boxes where the underlying character(s) are obscured. Mr Henry was unable to help with what they might say and when giving her evidence in chief the Defendant did not attempt to fill in the gaps, even though I had identified the issue before evidence began. Sometimes the missing character can be deduced with a high degree of confidence, so that, for example, the first sentence of the third paragraph can be deduced to being “Before I moved into 15 Erica Gardens I was living with….” But nearly all numbers are obscured and in many cases the missing character(s) cannot be readily deduced. I cannot properly guess what the evidence might say, unless it is obvious. This matters, when for example she says “I only had () plug sockets” or “I believe that the longest we went with no heating or hot water was () months”. She adopted the statement as true without correcting the very many omissions, and I cannot properly make a finding of fact that goes beyond the words as they appear on the page of the documents placed before me.

The Court adds, pointedly

If the Defendant considers that she has failed to establish any part of her case by reason of inadequate pleadings or problems with the evidence before me, she may need to take that up with her solicitors.

On the whole, the defendant’s oral evidence was accepted, but where she could not be specific about notice the Court fell back on documentary evidence.

On the section 13 notice, the defendant argued estoppel by convention, on the basis that the defendant had told the claimant she could not afford the increase and the claimant had accepted this. Unfortunately, the only evidence for this was a single WhatsApp message of a thumbs up emoji from the claimant to the defendant in response to one of her messages saying that she could not afford the increase. The Court was firm that this could not be sufficient to establish an estoppel,

I am not persuaded that a thumbs up emoji, on the facts of this case, can be taken as meaning that the Defendant did not have to pay the increased rent. It could simply mean that he noted her view, or that he understood it. It may be that he agreed that she could not afford to pay the new rent – but that is very different to making the next step to agreeing that the rent would not, therefore, be increased. In my judgment, as a matter of contractual construction the thumbs up emoji did not amount to an agreement to waive the rent increase. Nor, in my judgment, on the facts before me, was there an estoppel. The evidence falls far short of demonstrating that there was a common assumption at all, far less that it was ever expressly shared between them. Nor was there an expression by the First Claimant that he could be said to have assumed some responsibility for any shared understanding. I am not persuaded that the Defendant did more than just rely on her own independent view of the matter. I see no subsequent mutual dealing between the parties showing such reliance.

So, the increase was not waived and the £9,250 arrears stood.

On the disrepair counterclaim, limitation applied from 9 January 2018.

(As a subnote, though not relevant to what follows, the tenancy agreement made repairing glass in windows the tenant’s obligations. I don’t think that can stand in view of section 11.)

On the pleaded disrepair, for the periods that the Court was able to accept that notice was given, the following awards were made:

a. Tap £509.60 (constant flow of water when off, dripped from handle when in use. 376 days when the rent was £31.23 per day, and a further 92 days when the rent was £39.45 per day, award of 390 x £1 = £390 plus 92 x £1.30 = £119.60 making a total of £509.60.) (NL – just about 3% of rent)

b. Leak in kitchen ceiling £572.00 (143 days, rent £31.23 per day. Award of £4 per day – about 13% of rent)

c. Doors and windows £2428.70 (Defective window handles, and broken glass).

1357 days when the rent was £31.23 per day and 534 days until 18.7.2024, after which there would have been an overlap in the loss of amenity arising from the broken glass, followed by a further 395 days. For those latter two periods the rent was £39.45 per day.

It seems to me that £1.00 per day would be fair for the defective window handles until the rent increased, from which it should be £1.30 per day. From 18.7.24 the loss of amenity is for the same period and overlaps considerably with it. It also seems to me that for that period, from 18.7.24 – 16.8.25, the broken handles should be treated as an exacerbation of the more significant problems arising from broken glass and leaking windows, worth an additional £0.50 per day

I therefore award 1537 x £1 = £1537, plus 534 x £1.30 = £694.20, plus 395 x £0.50 = £197.50, making a total of £2428.70.

(NL – about 3% of rent, rising to 4.5% rent)

d. Leaking windows £1975.00 (Same duration as broken glass – 395 days, at £4 per day. About 10% of rent)

e. Pendant Lamp fixture broken £289.00 (578 days from 18.7.24 to trial, at £0.50 per day, about 1% of rent.)

f. Boiler £803.86 (Failure for 78 days over winter – allowing 7 days for repairs. 33% of rent)

g. Damp and Mould £1082.00 (to bathroom and two bedroom ceilings. 541 days to trial. £2 per day, being about 5% of rent)

h. Plug socket £286.00 (Two defective sockets in kitchen, 143 days at £2 per day, being about 6.4% of rent)

i. Cooker £214.50 (New hob defectively installed with knobs that did not fit and overheated. 143 days (after 7 days for repair) at £1.50 per day, some 5% of rent)

j. Fan £nil (Faulty extractor fan, no evidence that this persisted after 9 January 2018.)

There was no award for special damages, because no schedule of loss in that regard had been pleaded.

There was no claim for specific performance.

Total damages on the counter claim were therefore £8,160.66

This was outweighed by the arrears of £9,250. Assuming that D could pay the arrears left and the rent ongoing, an outright possession order did not appear justified. (The parties later agreed an SPO with repayment of the arrears).

Both parties had put in further written submissions after the close of trial, these had been ignored.

No order as to costs, apart from detailed assessment of legal aid costs, and claimant to pay the SJE’s fee.

Comment

First off, pleadings, people, pleadings! A case must be pleaded,. It is no good trying to raise it at trial (or indeed after the conclusion of trial). This includes special damages claims.

Second – witness evidence. It is generally best that it is actually legible – particularly for key dates, where a lot turns on notice and limitation. Any problems with a witness statement should be addressed as a preliminary to oral evidence, if not corrected before.

It is noticeable that section 9A/10 unfitness for human habitation was not pleaded, although it would have applied from 20 March 2020 and would seem relevant to at least some of these defects.

The Court’s approach to general damages – a specific award for specific issues for a particular period of time – is a change from the more broad brush assessments often seen (insofar as such cases are often seen), but a perfectly valid one. It can indeed result in higher overall awards than a ‘broad brush’ approach across multiple defects.

However, I am wondering whether such an approach could work with a s.9A/10 claim, where the approach to general damages has to be more holistic to the overall unfitness of the dwelling, rather than a specific loss of amenity per defect. (See discussion here.)

Lastly, a reasonable time to fix a broken boiler, as the sole source of heating and hot water, for social landlords is highly arguably already subject to Awaab’s Law.  During winter months, and considering any particular vulnerabilities of the occupiers, this could (and I have successfully argued does) amount to an emergency hazard, with a 24 hours response time.