Richards v Stott[2024] QCATA 54

QUEENSLAND CIVIL AND ADMINISTRATIVE TRIBUNAL

REASONS FOR DECISION

What is this application about?

1. [1]
   The appellant lessors brought an application in a residential tenancy dispute in MCDT757/22 – Beenleigh (the MCD application) against the respondent tenants claiming:

   1. reimbursement of solicitor’s fees incurred by Ms Richards and her mother to respond to criminal charges brought in relation to property entry over the respondents’ objections; and
   2. compensation for damage the property said to have been caused by the respondent tenants during their tenancy. 

2. [2]
   At the hearing on 22 November 2022, the MCD application was dismissed, the claim for legal fees as an abuse of process and the compensation claim because no evidence by way of reports or photographs was put to the Tribunal with respect to the state of the property at start or at the end of the tenancy. 
3. [3]
   The applicants want to appeal the decision but require leave to do so.^[1]  I have refused leave for the reasons that follow. 

Application for leave to appeal

4. [4]
   In determining whether to grant leave, the Appeal Tribunal must be satisfied that:

   1. there is a reasonably arguable case of error in the primary decision;^[2]
   2. there is a reasonable prospect that the appellant will obtain substantive relief;^[3]
   3. leave is needed to correct a substantial injustice caused by some error;^[4] or
   4. there is a question of general importance upon which further argument, and a decision of the Appeal Tribunal, would be to the public advantage.^[5]
5. [5]
   The applicants’ grounds for leave to appeal are:

   1. financial hardship to the applicants;
   2. seeking ‘justice’ for lessors which respect to how the rules of entry are applied; and
   3. seeking restitution for the ‘outrageous’ escalation of Ms Richards’ entry to the property to criminal proceedings.
6. [6]
   These are not grounds of appeal. Later submissions filed pursuant to Appeal Tribunal directions do not raise or identify either errors of fact or law regarding the learned Adjudicator’s decision, and there are none apparent on the face of the file.
7. [7]
   Issues regarding the circumstances in which charges were laid against Ms Richards and her mother were dealt by the learned Adjudicator as follows:

There was an entry notice … issued to the tenants on the 22^nd of December 2021 in which …the applicant proposed to enter the property on the 19^th of the 12^th 2021.  She was refused entry but attempted entry into the property in any case.  As a consequence, criminal charges ensued.

Initially, she was charged with an offence of enter premises with intent.  But it seems that that charge was substituted and dismissed, and a plea of guilty was entered for another charge or a different charge. Ms Richards, conveniently now, has forgotten what that charge is. She concedes that it related to the subject matter of the notice of entry.

It seems to me that what is sought amounts to an abuse of process.  I’m not minded to grant any compensation for legal fees that Ms [indistinct] in turn incurred in respect of matters to which she pleaded guilty. That aspect of the application is dismissed.

8. [8]
   Issues regarding entry or denial of entry to the premises were not the subject matter of the MCD application. Chapter 3 Part 3 of the Residential Tenancies and Rooming Accomodation Act 2008 (Qld) (‘RTRAA’) deals with the lessor’s rights of entry, and where entry is refused.  The MCD application did not seek orders about entry or breach for refusing entry or variations for rules of entry.  The MCD application sought compensation for legal fees incurred by one of the lessors and her mother in defending criminal charges to which Ms Lessor ultimately plead guilty (albeit to a lessor charge). The Tribunal cannot interfere with a lessor’s admission of guilt to illegal entry to a property by then finding a tenant in breach of entry rules and the MCD application seeking reimbursement of the lessor’s legal fees was correctly identified by the Tribunal below as an abuse of process and dismissed as such.  
9. [9]
   As to the compensation claim, its success relied upon the applicants establishing to the Tribunal’s satisfaction that the tenants had breached their obligations under section 188 of the RTRAA to return the property at the end of the tenancy in the condition it was in at the start, fair wear and tear excepted.
10. [10]
    Ms Richards says that entry and exit condition reports and photographs were not available largely because her co-lessor Mr Davies, her former defacto partner, did not undertake and entry inspection or did not prepare a report and she did not have an opportunity to prepare an exit condition report even though she took possesion of the proeprty after the tenancy ended. It appears the lessors are in a family law property dispute involving the property. However, disputes beween the lessors were not a matter for the Tribunal in the MCD application and were certainaly not to be visited upon the tenants.
11. [11]
    The applicants bore the onus of proof to establish breach of s 188 and failed to do so.  Although the rules of evidence are relaxed in the tribunal,^[6] it cannot resolve matters in the absence of evidence by mere conjecture.^[7] 
12. [12]
    The compensation application before the Tribunal below was not supported by cogent evidence and the onus of proof was not met. The application was properly dismissed in those circumstances.

Decision

13. [13]
    The appeal process is not an opportunity for applicants to have their case automatically reheard.^[8] Nor is it the forum to express outrage at the justice system, or the ‘injustice system’ as Ms Richards refers to it.
14. [14]
    As the applicants have not demonstrated a reasonably arguable case that the Tribunal below was in error, and the applicants have no prospect of substantive relief, the application for leave to appeal is refused.