Adjustment of ground rent
Supreme Court 9 May 2018, HR-2018-865-S (case no. 2017/1693), civil case, appeal against reappraisal.
Nannestad municipality (Counsel Christian Piene Gundersen) v. Rådyrvegen housing cooperative (Counsel Torstein Burkeland)
Attending under section 30-13 of the Dispute Act: The state represented by the Ministry of Justice and Police Security (The Office of the Attorney General represented Karen Mellingen)
Justices: Endresen, Matningsdal, Tønder, Matheson, Noer, Bull, Bergsjø, Ringnes, Falch, Høgetveit Berg, Øie
A ground lessor, that was a municipality, claimed that the ground rent had to be adjusted in accordance with the land value, and that the requirement that this had to have been "unequivocally agreed", see section 15 subsection 2 of the then Ground Lease Act, was not consistent with the protection of property in Protocol 1 Article 1 of the ECHR. The Supreme Court stated that a municipality is not a legal person under the ECHR. A limitation to the municipality's right to increase the ground rent was thus not a violation of the ECHR. There was no obligation under international law indicating that the "unequivocally requirement" could be interpreted otherwise than as set out in Supreme Court case law. The municipality's submission that the legislature had chosen, on a principal basis, to equalise public and private lessors, did also not succeed. There was thus no legal basis for the municipality to increase the ground rent other than in accordance with changes in the consumer price index.