Housing : being the annotated texts of The Housing Act, 1957 and the Housing (Financial Provisions) Act, 1958 / by J.D. James.

  • Great Britain
Date:
1958
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Housing : being the annotated texts of The Housing Act, 1957 and the Housing (Financial Provisions) Act, 1958 / by J.D. James. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    70/596 (page 42)
    No. 109.—HOUSING 3 All E.R. 324; [1937] A.C. 898; Digest Supp., suggests that the superior courts will review the evidence on which a house has been held to be unfit. A similar decision has been given in Ireland; see McCoy v. Cork Corporation, [1934] 1.R. 779; Digest Supp. In England and Wales, however, the question of fact as to whether a house is fit or not rarely comes directly before the superior courts. The question has principally been considered on the provisions now reproduced in ss. 6 and 7, post (implied term on letting small houses). It can also arise on an appeal to the county court under the later provisions of this Part (ss. 9 e¢ seq., post), but appeals from that court under this Act are confined to points of law. Such appeals from the county court, in the past, have been largely on procedural points. These appeals cannot go beyond the Court of Appeal; see s. 38 (2), post. Cases decided on Parts III and V, post (see the notes to the Fourth Schedule, fost), do not directly raise the question of fact as to whether a house is fit or not, because of the limited nature of the grounds on which an application may be made to the High Court under para. 2 of the Fourth Schedule, post; see, for example, Re Falmouth (Well Lane, Sedgmond’s Court and Smithwick Hull) Clearance Order, 1936, Halse’s A pplication, [1937] 3 All E.R. 308; Digest Supp. Sub-s. (2). Section 9 of this Act. That section, post, relates to notices requiring the execution of works to render a house fit for human habitation, when this can be done at reasonable expense. The references in local Acts will, in fact, have been to s. 9 of the Act of 1936 (11 Halsbury’s Statutes (2nd Edn.) 457). The repeal mentioned in this subsection had already been effected by the Act of 1954; see the note on the effect of that Act, supra. It is not thought that any local Acts had reintroduced such extensions of s. 9 of the 1936 Act between the Act of 1954 and the present Act coming into force; and the present subsection seems therefore to be superfluous, except as a reminder. 5. Prohibition of back-to-back houses.—(1) Notwithstanding any- thing in any local Act or byelaw in force in any borough or district, it shall not be lawful to erect any back-to-back houses intended to be used as dwel- lings for the working classes, and any such house shall for the purposes of this Act be deemed to be unfit for human habitation: Provided that nothing in this section shall prevent the erection or use of a house containing several tenements in which the tenements are placed back to back, if the medical officer of health for the borough or district certifies that the several tenements are so constructed and arranged as to secure effective ventilation of all habitable rooms in every tenement. (2) This section shall apply to any house commenced to be erected after the third day of December, nineteen hundred and nine, except that it shall not apply to houses abutting on any streets, the plans whereof were approved by the local authority before the first day of May, nineteen hundred and nine, in any borough or district in which, on the third day of December, nineteen hundred and nine, any local Act or byelaws were in force permitting the erection of back-to-back houses. ) NOTES History. This section contains provisions formerly in s. 22 of the Housing Act, 1936. General Note. The erection of back-to-back houses was in some districts pro- hibited by local Act provisions or byelaws even before the passing of the Housing, Town Planning, etc., Act, 1909 (repealed). That Act introduced the present prohibi- tion, subject to certain savings reproduced in the present section. Sub-s. (1). Borough or district. This phrase was used in the Act of 1909 (ubi supra) when the nomenclature applied to local government areas was somewhat different from that now in use. The present types of area outside London are (in addition to administrative counties) county boroughs, non-county boroughs, urban districts, and rural districts the last three types being known as county districts; see the notes tos. 1, ante. Back-to-back. This expression is not defined. For examples of what have been held to be back-to-back houses, see Murrayfield Real, Estate Co. v. Edinburgh Magis- trates, [1912] S.C. 217; 38 Digest 216c, and White v. St. Marylebone Borough Council, [1915] 3 K.B. 249; 38 Digest 216, 507. It should be noted that the latter decision, ona case stated by the then Local Government Board under s. 39 (1) of the Act of 1909, was to the effect that it was for the Board to decide the question of fact as to whether the buildings were back-to-back houses under that Act.