View report page

SANITARY CIRCUMSTANCES
UNFIT FOR HUMAN HABITATION
The absence of a precise definition in the Housing Act, 1936 as to
what constitutes a house fit or unfit for human habitation has for years
been a thorny question to health officers in their efforts to improve
existing housing accommodation. It has been further complicated in
the post-war years by the difficulty of deciding what is "reasonable
expense" in view of the high cost of building repairs and the restrictions
on rents. It is quite clear that controlled rents, high building costs and
heavy dilapidations have reduced certain types of properties to below
the economic investment level.
It is interesting to note that the Girdwood Committee in their report
on "The Cost of House Maintenance" published in January, found
that for every £100 which a house owner spent in 1939 to maintain his
house in good tenantable repair he would today spend £316. In arriving
at this, the Committee took into account the relative cost of wages,
materials, overheads and rates of profits.
Section 9 (1) of the Housing Act, 1936 requires that before serving
a repairs notice the local authority must be satisfied that
(a) the house is in any respect unfit for human habitation :
(b) it is capable at reasonable expease of being rendered fit :
In determining whether a house can be rendered fit for human
habitation at reasonable expense regard should be had to
(i) the estimated cost of the works necessary to render it so fit ; and
(ii) the value which it is estimated that the house will have when the
works are completed.
The only guidance as to fitness is given in Section 188 (4) which
provides that in determining for the purpose of this Act whether a
house is fit, regard shall be had to the extent, if any, to which by reason
of disrepair or sanitary defects the house falls short of the provisions
of any byelaws in operation in the district or of any enactment in any
local Act in operation in the district dealing with the construction and
drainage of new buildings and the laying out and construction of new
streets or of the general standard of housing accommodation in the
district.
The same section also defines "sanitary defects" as including "lack
of air space or of ventilation, darkness, dampness, absence of adequate
and readily accessible water supply or sanitary accommodation or of
other conveniences, and inadequate paving or drainage of courts, yards
or passages".
In practice it has been found that sub-section (4) does not give sufficient
guidance to local authorities in what constitutes a fit house. Two
standards are mentioned, i.e. "Byelaw Standard" and "General Housing
15