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77
Notice of a demolition order is to be served upon the owner, who if
aggrieved, is granted right of appeal to the Local Government Board within
twenty-one days after the order is served upon him.
Section II. provides that should a local authority fail to make inspection of
their district in order to ascertain if there are any dwelling-houses in their
district in such a state as to be dangerous or injurious to health as to be
unfit for human habitation, the Local Government Board are empowered
to make an order requiring the local authority to remedy the default, and such
order is enforceable by mandamus.
Section 75 of the Act of 1890, 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 only applied where the rent did not exceed
in London, £20 per annum.
Section 14 of the new Act makes this condition implied in any contracts
made after the passing of the Act (viz.: 3rd December, 1909) for letting a
house or habitation where the rent does not exceed, in the case of a house
situate in the Administrative County of London, £40 per annum. This applies
to all houses within the rental limits, and is not confined to those let to the
working classes as formerly. Provision is made against "contracting cost."
But the condition above referred to, is not to be implied where 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.
Section 15 further provides that, during the holding of a term to which
section 14 applies, the premises be kept by the landlord in all respects reasonably
fit for human habitation, failing which (if a closing order is not made
with respect to the house) it is the duty of the local authority by written
notice to require the landlord within a reasonable time, being not less than
twenty-one days, by written notice to do such work as the local authority
specify in the notice as being necessary to make the house in all respects
reasonably fit for human habitation.
The landlord is enabled within twenty-one days after the receipt of the
notice to notify the local authority his intention of closing the house for
human habitation, and thereupon a closing order is to be deemed to have
become operative in respect of the house.
If the notice is not complied with, and if the landlord has not given notice
of his intention to close the house, the local authority may, at the expiration