Metropolitan Housing Trust v Hadjazi [2010] EWCA Civ 750, [2010] All ER (D) 09 (Jul)
Schedule 2, Pt II, to the Housing Act 1988, so far as material, provided: “Grounds on which court may order possession ... Ground 14A, The dwelling house was occupied (whether alone or with others) by [a married couple …] and—(a) one or both of the partners is a tenant of the dwelling house, (b) the landlord who is seeking possession is…a registered social landlord…(c) one partner has left the dwelling house because of violence or threats of violence by the other towards—(i) that partner…(d) the court is satisfied that the partner who has left is unlikely to return …”
There was nothing ambiguous about either the concept or the wording of ground 14A which could properly attract a principle of interpretation favouring the party to a marriage or civil partnership or equivalent relationship who had been violent or threatening towards the other party to the relationship, thereby causing the other party to leave the property in which they had lived together. Ground 14A looked to the past, first to the facts of
