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THE RENT ACT, 1957.
The Rent Act, 1957 received the Royal Assent on June 6th 1957 and came Into
force on July 6th 1957.
According to the Explanatory Memorandum to the Act it has three main purposes:-
(a) In England and Wales, to fix new rents for statutory tenancies and other
tenancies to which the Rent Acts continue to apply, and to provide a procedure
for affecting any increase of rent thereunder;
(b) In Scotland, to permit, subject to certain conditions, an increase in rents
payable under such tenancies, and to raise the amount of the repairs increase
under Part II of the Housing (Repairs and Rents) (Scotland) Act, 1954;
(c) In Great Britain, to provide for the decontrol of certain categories of dwelling
houses, and for the exemption of new tenancies from control, and to enable further
categories of dwelling houses to be decontrolled from time to time by Ministerial
Order.
The Ministry Circular No. 32/57 states that the Act has the general objectives
of enabling rented houses and flats to be put and kept in repair, of increasing the total
stock of rented accommodation, of securing a better use of existing housing accommodation
and of making a beginning on the restoration of a free market.in rented housing.
The Act is of particular importance to public health inspectors because of the
influence it is likely to have on the repair of houses, and of the changes in the
procedure to be followed in the issue of Certificates of Disrepair.
In the post-war years local authorities have been able to make little use of
the repair provisions of the Housing Act, 1936. The principle difficulty has been that,
even in the case of houses which are basically fit, the cost of necessary repairs in
relation to the value of the house, as assessed by the rent yield, has been unreasonable.
In such cases if action had been initiated under the Housing Act, the course which
legally should have been pursued was that of making a demolition order. The rent increases
which the Act permits greatly facilitate the more extensive use of the repairs provisions
of the Housing Act by increasing the value of houses.
The new procedure for issuing Certificates of Disrepair to controlled tenants
is cumbersome and to some extent unsatisfactory. According to the Act the first step
has to be taken by the tenant, who is required to serve on his landlord a notice, in
the prescribed form, that the house is in disrepair. He must specify the items which
he considers require attention and request the landlord to deal with them. If the
work specified in the notice has not been carried out within six weeks of the service
of the notice on the landlord, the tenant may apply to the local authority for a
Certificate of Disrepair, unless during that period the landlord has given an undertaking
that he will remedy the defects, In which case he is allowed six months in which
to do the work. Before issuing a Certificate of Disrepair inspection of the premises
must be made and the local authority must serve a notice on the landlord stating that
they propose issuing the certificate and specifying the defects to which it will relate.
The landlord may within three weeks of receiving this notice give an undertaking that he
will remedy the defects, this having the effect of preventing the issue of the Certificate
of Disrepair and giving him six months in which to do the work.
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