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protect tenants from injury as a result of structural conditions in
the house.
Where rooms are let to tenants or lodgers as their living
accommodation, the manager must ensure that the rooms are clean and
in a reasonable state of structural repair at the commencement of the
letting and that defects are remedied in the rooms which are already
let, when the Regulations are applied to a house. There is a
continuing obligation for the repair and proper working order of
installations in the rooms, for the supply of water, gas and electricity
as well as baths, sinks, basins and sanitary conveniences.
In Part III of the Regulations a general obligation is
placed on occupants to take reasonable care not to hinder the manager
in carrying out his duties.
Regulation 14 requires the manager to display in a suitable
position in the house a notice containing his name and address and that
of any other manager with an indication of his interest (i.e. agent or
trustee), a copy of the Management Order, a copy of the Regulations and,
if the local authority require, a notice which the authority may provide
for indicating briefly the main provisions of the Regulations.
The new Regulations do not stand in isolation, and they must
be taken together with existing powers under the Housing Act, 1957,
and the new powers contained in the 1961 Act relating to the provision
of additional services and facilities and the prevention or reduction
of overcrowding. It is likely that there will be houses where Orders
applying a code of management prescribed in the Regulations will be
all that are necessary to bring about an improvement in conditions.
In others, the reason for the unsatisfactory state of affairs will be
not so much bad management as lack of essential facilities. To put
this right, a local authority can require the necessary work to be
done and, where need be, link the notice of works with a direction
limiting the number of occupants in a house. In the very worst type
of houses conditions may be so bad that, to effect any real improvement,
it will be necessary to take action at one and the same time to
secure better management, additional facilities and a limitation on
the number of occupants.