## Facts

- Maria Hutten-Czapska owned a house in Gdynia, Poland, comprising flats rented to tenants.
- Polish housing laws regulated landlord-tenant relations through strict rent ceilings, limits on rent increases, and narrow grounds and procedures for terminating leases.
- Rent caps often produced rent levels below maintenance and operating costs, preventing landlords from covering upkeep and earning a reasonable return.
- Landlords faced serious obstacles to recovering possession, including where tenants’ occupancy resulted from past administrative allocation decisions.
- Domestic law did not provide a compensatory mechanism allowing landlords to recover losses caused by maintaining property under controlled rents.
- The applicant alleged that the regime forced private landlords to subsidize housing policy and impaired the substance of her property rights.

## Issues

1. Whether the rent-control and tenant-protection regime constituted an unjustified interference with the peaceful enjoyment of possessions under Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 by upsetting the fair balance and imposing an excessive burden on the applicant.
2. Whether the violation stemmed from a structural defect in domestic law requiring general measures by the State under Article 46.
3. Whether the court lacked temporal jurisdiction over parts of the claim (ratione temporis).

## Decision

- The Grand Chamber rejected the Government’s ratione temporis objection.
- The court found an interference amounting to “control of the use” of property (not deprivation), pursued for legitimate social aims in housing policy.
- The court held that Poland violated Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 because the combined effect of rent ceilings, strong tenure protections, and lack of compensation imposed a disproportionate and excessive burden on landlords and impaired the essence of the applicant’s property right.
- The court identified the violation as rooted in a systemic malfunction of domestic legislation affecting a broader class of landlords.
- The court indicated under Article 46 that Poland had to adopt general measures to create a mechanism restoring a fair balance between landlords’ interests and the community’s housing aims.
- The court reserved determination of pecuniary damage for later proceedings while awarding non-pecuniary relief.

## Legal Principles

- Interference with property rights may be justified when lawful and in the general interest, but it must maintain a fair balance between community interests and individual property rights, with a reasonable relationship of proportionality.
- States have a wide margin of appreciation in housing and social policy, yet measures cannot impose an individual and excessive burden on a limited group of property owners.
- Rent-control regimes that prevent landlords from covering basic maintenance costs, restrict termination of leases, and provide no mechanism to recover losses can upset the fair balance and impair the substance of property rights.
- Social burdens of public housing policy should not be placed solely on private landlords without compensation or a workable legal mechanism distributing costs more broadly.
- Where a violation results from a structural defect affecting many persons, the court may indicate general measures under Article 46 aimed at correcting the underlying legislative malfunction.

## Conclusion

The court held that Poland’s rent-control and tenant-protection framework, taken as a whole, went beyond permissible regulation by shifting the cost of housing policy onto private landlords without adequate rent-setting rules or compensation, thereby violating the right to peaceful enjoyment of possessions and requiring general legislative measures to restore a fair balance.


Hutten-Czapska v. Poland, App. No. 35014/97 (Eur. Ct. H.R. 2006)