Bittó and Others v. Slovakia (no. 30255/09)
The Court held that the question of the application of Article 41 (just satisfaction) of the Convention was not ready for decision and reserved it for examination at a later date.
The applicants are 21 Slovakian nationals who were born between 1923 and 1977. 20 of them live in Slovakia and one lives in the Czech Republic. The case concerned the applicants’ complaints that rent controls on properties owned by them restricted their right to peacefully enjoy their possessions. The applicants are owners or co-owners of residential buildings in Bratislava and Trnava to which the rent-control scheme applied, or has applied. They obtained the ownership of the flats by various means, such as restitution, donation or inheritance from their relatives to whom the flats had been
restored. The majority of the applicants acquired ownership in the course of the 1990s. The flats in these houses were mostly occupied by tenants, who paid the new owners a rate of rent regulated by the government and whose eviction was practically impossible. The applicants – who have gained ownership of the properties from relatives to whom the flats were restored, or from restitution – complained that the rent they received was a fraction of what they would obtain if the flats were made available on the open market. Furthermore, they alleged that the regulated rate of rent was not even sufficient to cover the costs of maintenance and repairs. Relying in particular on Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 (protection of property), the applicants complained that the rent controls had breached their right to peaceful enjoyment of their possessions.
Violation of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1
