Insight
The First-tier Tribunal for Scotland Housing and Property Chamber has ordered a Glasgow landlord to pay £2,400 to his former tenants after they applied to the tribunal for a Wrongful Termination Order.
The tenants, Lesley Munro and Grant McNicoll, rented a flat in Dennistoun, Glasgow from David Ross, the landlord, under a private residential tenancy (PRT) in February 2018 at a rent of £800 per month.
Under a PRT, a landlord has limited grounds for removal, one being that the landlord intends to live in the let property. In December 2020, Mr Ross served the tenants with a notice to leave on the basis that he intended to live in the property. The tenancy came to an end on 13 January 2021, at which point the landlord moved into the property but 19 days later, on 2 February 2021, he put the property back on the market.
The tenants raised an action for a Wrongful Termination Order and the tribunal concluded that the landlord had no coherent explanation as to the sudden change in his intentions and blamed financial difficulties, physical health problems and the COVID- 19 pandemic for this change but without providing any meaningful evidence to support this position.
The court concluded that the landlord had misled the tenants and in assessing the financial award due to the tenants the Tribunal took into account the landlord’s dishonesty throughout this process and decided that a penalty of £2,400, three times the amount of the monthly rent, appropriately reflected the gravity of the landlord’s actions.
The decision highlights that the mandatory grounds for removal set out in Schedule 3, of the Private Housing (Tenancies) (Scotland) Act 2016 are only to be used in the circumstances intended by the Act and the Tribunal will take a firm stand with landlords that try to circumvent the tenancy protection rules by attempting to evict tenants on grounds which they cannot vouch for in court.