THIRD SECTION
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
CASE OF BALAN AND OTHERS v. SLOVAKIA
 
(Applications nos. 51414/11 and 46098/12)
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
JUDGMENT
 
This judgment was revised in accordance with Rule 80 of the Rules of Court in a judgment of 17 July 2018. STRASBOURG
 
27 June 2017
 
 
 
This judgment is final but it may be subject to editorial revision. In the case of Balan and Others v. Slovakia,
The European Court of Human Rights (Third Section), sitting as a Committee composed of:
 Helen Keller, President,
 Pere Pastor Vilanova,
 Alena Poláčková, judges,
and Fatoş Aracı, Deputy Section Registrar,
Having deliberated in private on 6 June 2017,
Delivers the following judgment, which was adopted on that date:
PROCEDURE
1. The case originated in two applications (nos. 51414/11 and 46098/12) against the Slovak Republic lodged with the Court under Article 34 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (“the Convention”) by sixty-five applicants. The particulars of the applicants and the dates on which the applications were lodged appear in Appendices 1 and 2. 2. The applicants were represented before the Court by Mr J. Brichta, a lawyer practising in Bratislava. The Government of the Slovak Republic (“the Government”) were represented by their Agent, Ms M. Pirošíková. 3. The applicants complained under Article 1 of Protocol No. 1, both taken alone and in conjunction with Article 14 of the Convention, about restrictions that rules governing rent control had imposed on their right to peacefully enjoy their possessions. 4. On 13 September 2013 the applications were communicated to the Government. 5. The applicants and the Government each submitted written observations (Rule 59 § 1) on the admissibility, merits and just satisfaction, and replied in writing to each others’ observations. 6. The Government objected to the examination of the applications by a Committee. Having considered their objection, the Court dismisses it. 7. The applicants, who are natural persons, are all Slovak nationals (with the exception of Ms M. Svobodová and Mr. P. Wichner, who are Czech nationals). The Government of the Czech Republic, having been informed of their right to intervene (under Article 36 § 1 of the Convention and Rule 44 § 1 (a) of the Rules of Court), did not avail themselves of this right. THE FACTS
I. THE CIRCUMSTANCES OF THE CASE
8. The applicants are owners of residential buildings which were or still are subject to the rent-control scheme. Under the relevant legislation they were obliged to let their flats to tenants while charging no more than the maximum amount of rent fixed by the State. The legislation precluded them from unilaterally terminating the leases or selling the flats in question to anyone other than the respective tenants. The particulars of the flats affected by the rent control are set out in Appendices 3 and 4 (columns A - F). 9. The situation of the applicants is structurally and contextually the same as that in Bittó and Others v. Slovakia (no. 30255/09, 28 January 2014 (merits) and 7 July 2015 (just satisfaction) and subsequently decided cases concerning the rent-control scheme in Slovakia (Krahulec v. Slovakia, no. 19294/07; Bukovčanová and Others v. Slovakia, no. 23785/07; and Rudolfer v. Slovakia, no. 38082/07, 5 July 2016; Riedel and Others v. Slovakia, nos. 44218/07, 54831/07, 33176/08, 47150/08; Mečiar and Others v. Slovakia, no. 62864/09, 10 January 2017). II. RELEVANT DOMESTIC LAW
10. The relevant domestic law and practice governing the rent control scheme in Slovakia and its historical background are set out in the Court’s judgment in the case of Bittó and Others, ((merits), cited above, §§ 7‑16, 32‑72). 11. On 15 September 2011, the Termination and Settlement of Tenancy (Certain Apartments) Act (Law no. 260/2011) came into force; this legislation was enacted with a view to ending the rent-control scheme by 31 December 2016. Under the Act, owners of apartments whose rent had been regulated were entitled to give notice by 31 March 2012 of the termination of a tenancy contract and to increase rent by 20% once a year as of 2011. However, if a tenant was exposed to material hardship, he or she would be able to continue to use the apartment while still paying a regulated rent, even after the expiry of the notice period, until a new tenancy contract with a municipality had been set up. Municipalities were obliged to provide a person exposed to material hardship with a municipal apartment at a regulated rent. If a municipality did not comply with that obligation by 31 December 2016, the landlord could claim from the municipality the difference between the free-market rent and the regulated rent. THE LAW
I. JOINDER OF THE APPLICATIONS
12. The Court considers that given their common factual and legal background the two applications should be joined, in accordance with Rule 42 § 1 of the Rules of Court. II. ALLEGED VIOLATION OF ARTICLE 1 OF PROTOCOL NO. 1
A. Admissibility
1. Compliance with the six-month time-limit
13. Under Article 35 § 1 of the Convention, the Court may only deal with a matter “within a period of six months from the date on which the final decision was taken”. Where the alleged violation constitutes a continuing situation against which no domestic remedy is available (such as – as in the present case – the application of a rent-control scheme), the six-month period starts to run from the end of the situation concerned (see Bittó and Others v. Slovakia, no. 30255/09, 28 January 2014 (merits), § 75). 14. According to the information submitted by the applicants, rent control ceased to apply or the respective applicants ceased being owners of the property indicated below more than six months before the lodging of application no. 51414/11 on 8 August 2011 and application no. 46098/12 on 23 July 2012:
- Mr A. Böhm and Ms S. Böhmová, the owners of the residential building at 18 Medená Street in Bratislava, submitted that that building had ceased to be subject to rent control in 2007;
- Mr J. Hlavačka and Ms E. Valentová ceased being co-owners of the residential building at 8 Štefanovičova Street in Bratislava in 2005;
- Ms M. Kubešová ceased being a co-owner of the residential building at 16 Banskobystrická Street in Bratislava in 2002;
- Mr Š. Ciran ceased being a co-owner of the residential building at 6 Blumentálska Street in Bratislava in 2004;
- Ms I. Uhlárová ceased being a co-owner of the residential building at 21 Grösslingova Street in Bratislava in 2009;
- Mr K. Červenčík and Ms A. Huttová, the co-owners of the residential building at 10 Sedlárska Street in Bratislava, submitted that rent control had ceased to apply to the flats in that building on 30 April 2008. 15. To the extent that the above-mentioned applicants allege a breach of their rights as a result of rent control in respect of the flats indicated in the preceding paragraph, they have failed to respect the time-limit of six months laid down in Article 35 § 1 of the Convention. It follows that this part of the application has been introduced out of time and must be rejected, in accordance with Article 35 §§ 1 and 4 of the Convention (Bukovčanová and Others v. Slovakia, no. 23785/07, § 12, 5 July 2016). 2. Substantially the same application as a matter already examined by the Court
16. The parents of one of the applicants (Mr Šindelár) lodged application no. 62864/09 concerning the rent control applicable to flats that he owned in two residential buildings. In 2010 and 2014 respectively the applicant inherited ownership shares in those residential buildings and was acknowledged as having standing to pursue the application in his late parents’ stead (see Mečiar and Others v. Slovakia, no. 62864/09, §§ 12-13, 10 January 2017). In that case, the Court found a violation of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 to the Convention and awarded Mr Šindelár just satisfaction (ibid., §§ 28, 40). 17. Meanwhile, Mr Šindelár lodged the present application, which concerns the application of rent control to the above-mentioned flats located in the inherited property. The question therefore arises whether his present application is inadmissible under Article 35 § 2 (b) of the Convention, which provides, in so far as relevant, as follows:
“2. The Court shall not deal with any application submitted under Article 34 that ... (b) is substantially the same as a matter that has already been examined by the Court ... and contains no relevant new information.”
18. The Court reiterates that an application will generally fall foul of this Article where it has the same factual basis as a previous application (see Kafkaris v. Cyprus (dec.), no. 9644/09, § 68, 24 June 2011). The claims put forward by Mr Šindelár in the present application concern the same flats and the same periods during which those flats were subject to rent control as submitted by his late parents in application no. 62864/09, which he pursued in their stead. The Court delivered its judgment in that matter and awarded the applicant just satisfaction. The applicant did not put forward “relevant new information” that could have altered the basis on which the previous decision was taken. 19. It follows that the application submitted by Mr M. Šindelár falls within the scope of Article 35 § 2 (b) of the Convention and must be rejected, pursuant to Article 35 § 4. 20. The Court notes that the remaining applications are not manifestly ill-founded within the meaning of Article 35 § 3 of the Convention. It further notes that they are not inadmissible on any other grounds. They must therefore be declared admissible. B. Merits
21. The applicants complained that their right to the peaceful enjoyment of their possessions had been breached as a result of the implementation of rules governing rent control that applied to their property. They relied on Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 to the Convention, which reads as follows:
“Every natural or legal person is entitled to the peaceful enjoyment of his possessions. No one shall be deprived of his possessions except in the public interest and subject to the conditions provided for by law and by the general principles of international law. The preceding provisions shall not, however, in any way impair the right of a State to enforce such laws as it deems necessary to control the use of property in accordance with the general interest or to secure the payment of taxes or other contributions or penalties.”
22. The applicants argued that the restrictions imposed on the use of their property by the rent‑control scheme imposed a disproportionate burden on their ownership rights. The rent which they were allowed to charge for letting their property was disproportionately low compared with similar flats to which the rent‑control scheme did not apply and that despite a number of increases in the regulated rent, this remained much lower than the market rent. They supported their arguments with expert opinions. Furthermore, the legislation adopted with a view to eliminating the rent‑control scheme did not provide for compensation for owners of residential buildings in their position. 23. The Government conceded that the rent‑control scheme had resulted in a restriction on the use of the applicants’ property, but argued that it had been in accordance with the law and had pursued the legitimate aim of protecting tenants against unaffordable increases in rent. As to the requirement of proportionality, they challenged the method used by the experts to calculate market rent for the purpose of the opinions submitted by the applicants and argued that the restrictions imposed on the applicants’ property had not been disproportionate. They commissioned and submitted their own expert opinion, which set out the average monthly market rent for flats comparable to those of the applicants, and an additional expert opinion which challenged the methods used in the expert opinions submitted by the applicants. Lastly, they maintained that the situation had been resolved by the legislation adopted in 2011, which envisaged the elimination of all rent control by the end of 2016. 24. The relevant case-law of the Court is summarised in Bittó and Others ((merits), cited above, §§ 94‑100, with further references). 25. In Bittó and Others and subsequent rent control cases (see, among others, Bukovčanová and Others, cited above), the Court found (i) that the rent‑control scheme had amounted to an interference with the applicants’ property, (ii) that that interference had constituted a means of State control of the use of their property to be examined under the second paragraph of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1, (iii) that it had been “lawful” within the meaning of that Article, (iv) that it had pursued a legitimate social policy aim, and (v) that it had been “in accordance with the general interest”, as required by the second paragraph of that Article (Bittó and Others (merits), cited above, §§ 101‑104). 26. As to the requirement of proportionality, the Court noted in Bittó and Others and the subsequent rent control cases that regardless of the difference in the calculation methods on which the parties relied, the evidence submitted by both parties was sufficient to conclude that the regulated rent had remained considerably lower than the market rent, even after several increases in the regulated rent provided for by the legislation (Bittó and Others (merits), cited above, § 113, and Mečiar and Others v. Slovakia, cited above, § 26, 10 January 2017). The Court also took into account that the legislation allowing for gradual increases in the regulated rent did not serve as a basis for obtaining compensation for use of the property under the rent-control scheme with any retrospective effect (Bukovčanová and Others, cited above, § 42). The Court concluded that in the implementation of the rent‑control scheme the authorities had failed to strike the requisite fair balance between the general interests of the community and the protection of the applicants’ property rights as a result of which there had been a violation of their rights under Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 (Bittó and Others (merits), cited above, § 116). 27. The Court observes that the present case follow the pattern of Bittó and Others and subsequent rent control cases, both structurally and contextually. The Government voiced the same objections as to the proportionality of the interference as it did in Bittó and Others and have not put forward any fact or argument capable of persuading the Court to reach a different conclusion in the present case.

Outcome for Article P1-1: violation