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104
Ministry that survey and examination is necessary, in order to determine whether
any powers under the Housing Acts should be exercised.
Having regard to the terms of this section, I think it is clear that you must
specifically authorise your officers to enter, in each case, and your resolution must
state the purpose for which the entry is authorised. The owner and occupier must
than have 24 hours' notice of the intention to enter. When this has been completed
and the result reported to you, it then becomes your duty to direct notice to be served
upon the owner calling upon him within a reasonable time, not less than 21 days, to
carry out such work as may be necessary to make the premises in all respects fit for
human habitation. Against the requirements of this notice the owner has a right of
appeal to the Ministry, and if he makes default in complying with it the only remedy
is for you to enter and carry out the work. It is, therefore, obvious that the notice
must take the form of a complete specification of works, which can be considered iu
detail, and what is a reasonable time in which suoh works can be completed must
be decided upon.
If this system be carried out, your proceedings will be recorded in such a
form as cannot be questioned at any subsequent stage, and considering the large
amount of capital that will be involved, I think it is highly desirable that it should be
done in this way.
The work will impose upon the Department a very considerable amount of
work of a responsible and highly technical character, and you must expect that
the progress made in dealing with these houses will be of a gradual character.
For the purpose of this work I have had prepared a report sheet for every
house scheduled in the list already submitted to you and attached to this report,
and am arranging this according to urgency, so that the list may always be
before you in that order, and that you may appreciate what is involved.
The survey when completed, specifications prepared, and notices served, must
become part of a general scheme of administration, and the Committee must
decide what arrangements they are prepared to make for carrying out the work if
default is made in complying with the notices, whether it be done by direct
labour under the Borough Engineer or by open tender from selected builders.
Which ever way is chosen, I have small doubt that the duty of carrying out the
work in a very large number of houses will fall upon the Council, for I am of
opinion, that there are many owners who will avail themselves of this method of
getting the work done. As soon as the work is completed, proceedings for recovering
the amount spent, together with interest at the rate of 5 per cent., can be
commenced. Section 28 (4) empowers the local authority to declare any such
expenses to be paid by monthly or annual instalments extending over a period
not exceeding 30 years, with interest at the rate of 5 per cent. per annum. This
procedure, together with the state of finance at the present time, is for the
Committee to consider, and although it may appear unreasonable that the
Council should be expected to find this money at a rate that is less than it can be
borrowed at the bank, it appears to me that the Act intends that the Council
should in these cases finance the improvement in the homes of the working