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1. Failure to Supply Information necessary for Registration (Byelaw
5). —It will be understood that landlords not desiring the
registration of their houses endeavour to avoid such being done.
Naturally the defence urged will be to the effect that the house is
not suitable for registration. We had one such case in 1902.
The particulars of which are as follows :—
Finsbury Borough Council (Green) v. Fletcher.— In this case
defendant was summoned by us for having failed, within fourteen
days from the 27th November, 1901, and since the expiration
thereof, to supply to the Borough Council, a statement in writing
of the particulars and information necessary for the registration
of the premises, 36, Northampton Road, as a house let in
lodgings, as required by Bye-law 5 made in that behalf.
At the hearing at the Clerkenwell Police Court on March 4th,
1902, defendant's Counsel took the objection that inasmuch as
the house in question was let in floors, the landlord being nonresident,
and the several tenants being entitled to a vote, being on
the register as householders, that it was, therefore, a set of houses
(let out in floors) not liable to registration, and, therefore, not a
house subject to Bye-law 5. The case of Weatheritt v. Cantlay*
0 Weatheritt v. Cantlay — High Court of Justice, King's Hunch Division, May
13th, 1901, before the Lord Chief Justice, Mr. Justice Lawrance, and
Mr Justice Phillimore.
This case arose from a complaint preferred by James Weatheritt, an officer of
the Vestry of St. George-the-Mirtyr, Southwark, against R. W. Cantlay, of 15,
Finsbury Square, E.C., under the Bye-laws made by the Vestry with respect to
houses iet in lodgings, charging him that he had failed to furnish the Sanitary
Authority with a true statement of particulars with respect to certain houses as
required by the Bye-laws. The property in question was the Artizans'
Dwellings. Gunn Street, Southwark, consisting of two blocks of buildings, the
fronts of which abut on Gunn Street, and the backs on Silex Street. There was
a front door with a Norfolk latch, and from the entrance passage tenements
opened off, and were let to separate families. Each floor was arranged in a
similar manner, and supplied with water-closet, sink, water tap, and dust-shoot
opening. The staircase and passages were used in common. The landlord did
not live on the premises, but was represented by a caretaker. The respondent
contended that this property was not liable to registration under the Bye-laws
for houses let in lodgings. The appellant contended that such property did
come within such Bye-laws, and was a house or part of a house let in lodgings
within Section 94 of the Public Health (London) Act, 1891. The Lord Chief
Justice slated that "if there is an eight-roomed house, and in each of the eight
"rooms there is a family, that would come within the Bye-laws." But in the
present case he gave judgment that the building was "a collection of houses"
for the purpose of Section 94. There was no front door. There was a common
passage and staircase, and the property did not come within the Bye-laws for
houses let in lodgings.