6 Carnaby Street, Manchester, M9 4DF
Condition: Unfurnished two-bedroom terraced house with reported disrepair including a smoking oven, mould in a bedroom wardrobe, a leaking soil pipe causing odour, and poor insulation despite gas central heating.
Evidence considered
- Tenant submitted asking prices for two comparable two-bedroom properties in other areas (Windsor Road M25 £895; Grimshaw Lane M24 £900 'reduced'), but the Tribunal found these too geographically distant to be of significant assistance.
- Landlord submitted no evidence and did not respond to the Tribunal's Reply form or attend the hearing.
- Tribunal relied on its own expert/general knowledge of local rental values to set a baseline market rent for the property in good, modernised condition.
- Tribunal applied a downward adjustment from the baseline market rent to reflect specific, uncontested disrepair issues reported by the tenant.
Tenant submitted evidence: yes. Landlord submitted evidence: no.
Tribunal's reasoning
The Tribunal used its own expert knowledge of local rental values to assess a baseline market rent of £1000 pcm for the property if modernised and in good repair, rejecting the tenant's comparables as too geographically distant to be of real assistance. It then deducted £25 pcm to reflect uncontested disrepair reported by the tenant (a smoking oven, untreatable mould, a leaking soil pipe causing odour, and poor insulation), arriving at a determined rent of £975 pcm, which was the same as the existing rent and therefore below the landlord's proposed increase.
Read the original decision (PDF, GOV.UK)
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