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Section 3 will enable the Council to obtain loans from the Commissioners for
any purposes of the Housing Acts for the full period sanctioned by the London
County Council for repayment, if the Board make a recommendation to that
effect, and whatever the period for repayment, the loan is to be made at the
minimum rate allowed for the time being for loans out of the Local Loans
Fund. This rate at the present time is 3½ per cent.
Power of Hoard on complaint to enforce exercise of powers.
Section 10, so far as it concerns metropolitan boroughs, confers upon the
Board power, where a complaint is made to them by four inhabitant householders
of the borough that the local authority have failed to exercise their
powers under Part II. or Part III. of the principal Act in cases where those
powers ought to have been exercised, to cause a public local inquiry to be held.
If after holding such an inquiry the Board are satisfied that there has been such
a failure on the part of the local authority, they are empowered to declare the
authority to be in default, and to make an Order directing that authoritv,
within a time limited by the Order, to carry out such works and do such other
things as may be mentioned in the Order for the purpose of remedying the
default (Sub-section (1) ).
Contracts by landlord.
Section 75 of the principal Act provided that in any contract made after the
14th August, 1885, for letting for habitation by persons of the working classes
a house or part of a house, there was to be an implied condition that the house
was at the commencement of the holding in all respects reasonably fit for
human habitation, but this Section only applied where the rent did not exceed
in London £20, in Liverpool £13, in Manchester or Birmingham £10, and
elsewhere £8.
Section 14 of the new Act makes this condition implied in any contract made
after the passing of the Act for letting a house for habitation where the rent
does not exceed, in the case of a house situate in the administrative countv of
London, £40.
But the condition above referred to is not to be implied when a house or part
of a house is let for a term of not less than three years upon the terms that it
be put by the lessee into a condition reasonably fit for occupation, and the lease
is not determinable at the option of either party before the expiration of that
term.
Condition as to kteping houses in repair.
Section 15 of the Act establishes a new and important principle in regard to
contracts for letting houses to which Section 14 applies. The enactment is
designed to secure that the houses shall, during the holding, be kept by the
landlord in all respects reasonably fit for human habitation, and it provides
machinery for remedying any default on the part of the landlord in this
respect.
Thus it provides that Section 14 shall, as respects contracts to which that
Section applies, take effect as if the condition implied by it included an undertaking
that the house shall, during the holding, be kept by the landlord in all
respects fit for human habitation (Sub-section (1) ).