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The Housing Act, 1961, provided new powers for dealing with bad
living conditions in houses let in lodgings or occupied by members of more
than one family.
The 1961 Act provides, amongst other powers:-
(i) A new power to apply a code of management to individual
houses in which proper standards of management have not
been observed. The requirements of this code are prescribed
in the Housing (Management of Houses in Multiple
Occupation) Regulations, 1962, which came into operation
on 22nd May, 1962.
(ii) Stronger powers to require the provision of additional
facilities and amenities essential to decent living
conditions, and the provision of adequate means of escape
from fire.
(iii) A power for local authorities to carry out works themselves
in default and recover the cost.
(iv) A new power to make a direction limiting the number of
persons who may live in a house, or part of a house,
which is in multiple occupation.
The new powers are designed to deal primarily with the worst type of
multi-occupied house.
Part I of the Regulations mentioned in (i) above deals with their
application and interpretation; Part II prescribes the duties of management
to be discharged by the manager of the house; and Part III deals with
ancillary requirements including the provision of information. It also
places certain obligations on occupants for the purpose of ensuring that the
manager can effectively carry out his duties.
Responsibility for management will rest on an owner or lessee who
receives the rents or other payments from tenants or lodgers, including any
agent or trustee through whom the rents are received.
The main substance of the code of management is contained in Part II
of the Regulations which deals with the manager's responsibilities for repair
and maintenance. Broadly, these responsibilities amount to ensuring the
repair (including reasonable decorative repair), cleanliness and good order
of the parts of the house in common use; the proper maintenance throughout
the house of installations for basic services, such as water supply,
drainage;, gas and electricity; the repair and good order of all means of
ventilation and means of escape from fire. The manager is also required to
ensure an adequate provision of refuse bins and to take reasonable
precautions to 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.