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51
Housing- and Town Planning Act.
This new Act contains many important provisions for dealing
with the sanitation of house property. It is in dealing with insanitary
property that its application will perhaps be found most
useful.
Some of the points to which attention may be drawn are as
follows:—
Section 14 extends the application of section 75 of the Housing
of the Working Classes Act, 1890, to the effect that in any contract
for the letting of houses for the working classes it is to be
an implied contract that the house is to be at the beginning of
the tenancy in all respects reasonably fit for human habitation from
houses not exceeding a rental of £20 per annum to houses at a
rent not exceeding £40.
Further (section 15), the implied condition as to fitness includes
not only that the house at the beginning of the tenancy was
fit for human habitation, but that it shall be maintained so during
occupation.
Under the same section the Sanitary Authority are empowered
to do the work necessary to render the house fit for human habitation
and to recover the cost from the landlord, or alternatively
to make a Closing Order under sections 17 and 18.
In connection with closing and demolition orders, such orders
may, under the new Act, be made by the Sanitary Authority instead
of having to apply to a Court of Summary Jurisdiction, as
laid down in previous Acts. Further, an appeal was provided in
the latter to the Quarter Sessions. Under the provisions of the
Town Planning Act the appeal against a Closing or Demolition
Order will lie to the Local Government Board. Amongst other
matters dealt with in this Act of special interest to Sanitary