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39
The owner is, of course, entitled to appeal to the Court
if he considers that the notice is unreasonable on the grounds
that the work required to be done is excessive or that it cannot
be done at a reasonable cost. If the work is not done by the owner
or other person on whom the notice is served, the Council maydo
the work in default. In order to ensure that the cost of the
work is reasonable several tenders must be obtained and to do
this a much more detailed specification of the work must be
prepared including such things as the quality of the material used.
All this procedure can lead to a very considerable delay
and it is, therefore, not surprising that where a housing defect
is causing much discomfort to a tenant the much quicker and
simpler procedure under the Public Health (London) Act is
commonly used although the final results are less satisfactory.
In addition to the extra amount of work involved in
getting the repairs carried out, and this may be considerable
where the work is carried out by the Council in default, the
Treasurer's Department has a great deal to do in default cases
and although the financial position of the Council is safeguarded
it may take a long time before the whole of the expenses
incurred are recovered.
Difficulties also arise where the responsibility for
repairs has been passed to a tenant by a tenancy agreement. The
number of agreements making the tenant responsible for repairs
is increasing and it would obviously be unjust in the case of short
leases to require the tenant to carry out major repairs which
have been made necessary by the lack of maintenance by the
freeholder or head lessee over many years. Proposed new
legislation is likely to overcome this difficulty in the future.
Summary of action taken under Section 9
The following table gives details of the premises reported
as being suitable for action in accordance with the above mentioned
repairs section:-
The cases came to light as the result of house-to-house
surveys carried out by the district public health inspectors and
the housing inspector. The remaining houses inspected in this
way- 173- were dealt with whenever necessary by the service of
notices tinder the Public Health (London) Act, 1936.