The dispossessed owners of two requisitioned properties handed over to the Labour Party in 1980 to house its Birżebbuġa club have filed a case for damages, requesting the eviction of the current tenants.
In their constitutional application, Franco Grima and the Ellul Sullivan family, as owners of the “Smiling Prince” in Pretty Bay and a next door property in Triq id-Duluri, claim they have been receiving a miserly annual rent of €1,164.90, a far cry from the current rental value which stands at around €3,000 per month.
The applicants’ predecessors in title had leased out the premises before 1979 as a hotel and were later faced with a requisition order for the property to be taken over by the government to be used as a telephone exchange and, subsequently, as a health clinic.
However, a letter from the Housing Minister, dated September 11, 1980, had informed the owners that the keys were being handed over to the Housing Authority so that the Labour Party could step in as the new tenant.
The owners had no choice but to accept the PL as their new tenant, a situation that was forced upon them in view of the fact that the property was still subject to the requisition order.
Nor could…
