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HOUSING REPAIRS AND RENTS ACT,1954.
This long-awaited Act became operative on 30th August
1954.
It is a very important piece of legislation with far
reaching effects.
Its principal objective is to improve living conditions
in existing properties and it is hoped to achieve this mainly
in four ways:-
(i) By stimulating local authorities to increased
and speedier action in connection with slum
clearance. Provision is made for some novel
arrangements for the temporary retention of
certain unfit properties until their turn for
demolition arrives
(ii) By easing the conditions under which improvement
grants can be made.
(iii) By permitting private landlords to make limited
rent increases subject to houses being in good
repair.
(iv) By introducing new powers for dealing with
houses-let-in-lodgings.
With the limited experience we have had in administering
this Act comment must necessarily be guarded, but a few
observations may be of interest.
It was anticipated that we might receive an avalanche
of applications from tenants for certificates of disrepair
as soon as landlords gave notice of proposed rent increases.
In fact this did not happen and by 31st December 1954 only
twenty-two such applications had arrived all of which
justified the granting of a certificate. In the majority
of these cases landlords soon began to carry out necessary
repairs and to apply for revocation certificates.
The Council has in the past dealt so effectively
with unfit properties that apart from a few individual houses
little requires to be done at present by way of demolition
and certainly no slum clearance proposals are called for.
There is some uneasiness over the new standard of
fitness for habitation prescribed in this Act and there
are those who feel that the former standard was easier
to operate. Some of us are also sorry to see the abolition
of the byelaws with respect to houses-let-in-lodgings
without their replacement by a modern version.
Already some "curious" decisions have been given in
the Courts on various points and it will obviously take
a long time for the whole thing to "settle down";
meanwhile there is already talk of amending legislation!
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