A court awarded €180,000 to a family who had had three flats situated in Merchants Street, Valletta requisitioned back in 1963. The compensation was given after the court found that it suffered a disproportionate hardship.

The constitutional application was filed by Walter Delia, Mary Anne Delia, Robert Delia, Yvonne Delia, Joseph Delia, Mariella Grech and Wintrade Ltd against the Chairman of the Housing Authority. 

The family argued that in 1963 the government had requisitioned the flats and had allocated them for housing purposes in 1975.  The family had filed judicial action so as to be authorised to not recognise the new tenants and their action had been upheld by the Court of Appeal in 1992.

The flats were derequisitioned in 2009, but this notwithstanding they were still occupied by the persons to whom they had been allocated by the authorities as residences.  Ever since, the family did not receive any rent money from the occupants of the flats, but had received Lm1,000 per year from the Housing Authority for the three flats.

Mr Justice Anthony Ellul, who presided over the case in the First Hall of the Civil Court said that this was not a case of a de facto expropriation, as the property had remained in the family's ownership ever since the requisition order had been issued.  But the family's right to the enjoyment of its property had been impeded with and the court found that the government's right to provide social housing had placed a disproportionate burden on the family.

The court-appointed architect who had valued the apartments concluded that they were worth almost €800,000 in their entirety.  The compensation awarded to the family of Lm250 per flat per annum (around €575) was miserly, Mr Justice Ellul said.