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35
One case under the Housing Act, 1930, reached the County
Court. The premises were two semi-detached cottages, probably
a hundred or more years old in which the walls were damp, the
windows small and, more important, the height of the ceiling of
the lower rooms was only some 6½ feet. As the houses were
"unfit for human habitation and not capable at a reasonable
expense of being rendered so fit," regard in determining this
point "being paid to the extent to which by reason of disrepair
or sanitary defects the houses fell short of the provisions of byelaws
in operation in the district or of the general standard of
housing accommodation for the working classes in the district,"
the owner was served with a notice under Section 19 of the 1930
Housing Act. At the interview the fact that the very little
amount of work which the owner stated he was prepared to do
would not remedy the main defects, left the Council with no
alternative but to make a demolition order. Against this the
owner appealed. The judgment of the Court was that the
owner was to carry out the work deemed necessary by the owner's
surveyor and the Council's surveyor or, failing agreement between
them, by an independent surveyor. Up to the present the case
has not returned to the Court.