First Floor Flat, 23 Roumelia Lane, Bournemouth, BH5 1EU
Condition: Unmodernised first-floor flat with maintenance issues including a non-working freezer, unusable oven, faulty kitchen lights, and no internal door separating sleeping and living areas.
Evidence considered
- Tenant submitted six online portal listings for 1-bed flats in nearby BH postcodes (£840-£900), but tribunal gave them limited weight as locations were described as far from the subject property.
- Landlord submitted no comparable evidence, only submissions about the property's extra lobby space and storage.
- Tribunal relied on its own expertise/knowledge of local rental values to set a baseline market rent, then made deductions for condition and layout.
- Limited bank statement evidence of tenant's water costs (£16-£22.50) used to estimate a £25 pcm water allowance to strip out of the landlord's proposed rent, as water/sewerage charges were not part of the original tenancy agreement.
Tenant submitted evidence: yes. Landlord submitted evidence: no.
Tribunal's reasoning
The tribunal first found the landlord's s.13 notice valid because the tenancy had become a statutory periodic tenancy, so the 52-week minimum period rule did not apply. It then deducted an estimated £25 pcm water/sewerage element from the landlord's proposed £975 (since the tenancy agreement did not originally include water charges and no breakdown was provided), giving a baseline rental figure of £950 for a comparable property in good condition, informed by the tribunal's own market knowledge given the limited weight placed on the tenant's distant comparables and the absence of landlord comparables. From this baseline it deducted £30 pcm for the unmodernised condition and lack of repair (broken freezer, oven, lighting issues) and £20 pcm for the open-plan layout lacking separation between sleeping and living areas, arriving at £900 pcm. The tribunal also found no undue hardship in applying the new rent from the notice date given the modest £5 increase.
Read the original decision (PDF, GOV.UK)
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