MEMORANDUM. This Bill applies to every lease or tenancy of whatever length, and of every kind of property, except holdings to which the Agricultural Holdings Acts apply. It gives to the expert tribunal already constituted under the Acquisition of Land (Assessment of Compensation) Act, 1919, the power to determine all disputes between landlord and tenant as to the terms of the tenancy, and the following new powers: (a) To order a sale by the landlord to the tenant, or vice versâ, of their respective interests in the property; (b) to extend the tenancy; in each case on terms, financial and otherwise, in its discretion, subject to certain rules. It repeals subsection 12 of section eighty-four of the Law of Property Act, 1925, and re-enacts it so as to extend the power to vary any covenants which were or have become unfair or out-of-date to every lease or tenancy to which the Bill applies. It gives to the tenant the property in future buildings erected or improvements executed by him, for which he is to receive compensation if his tenancy is not renewed, and which are not to be assessed in the new rent if it is renewed. It restricts the landlord's claim for dilapidations to his actual loss, and enables the tenant to set off improvements carried out by him which he was not before the Act under contract to do. It abrogates certain clauses common in leases by which the tenant is required to submit matters arising in the course of the tenancy to, or to employ, persons named by the landlord; it restricts the fees which the landlord's agents may charge the tenant. It protects the tenant and his creditors from the landlord's claim to annex building materials, &c., brought upon the land. It releases the tenant, in a case where he has properly assigned, from future liability under the lease. It puts upon the landlord and his agents the duty of disclosing to an intending tenant defects in the property which may be known to them, and in the case of lettings not exceeding three years of maintaining the premises in a state fit for human habitation; it gives a right of action for breach of the latter duty to the family and lawful visitors of the tenant, as well as to the tenant himself, while protecting the landlord from liability for defects which he could not reasonably have avoided. ARRANGEMENT OF CLAUSES. Clause. 1. Conditions under which landlord or tenant may apply to tribunal. 2. Conditions under which tribunal may refuse to make orders or may make them with modifications. 3. Provisions as to tenants' improvements and other relations between landlord and tenant. 4. Claims as to damages, &c., to be determined by tribunal. 5. Conditions under which premises may be let. 6. Tribunal under the Act. A BILL ΤΟ Amend the law governing the relations between landlords and tenants. BE by mad with the advice and consent on the E it enacted by the King's most Excellent Majesty, A.D. 1927. Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, in this present Parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same, 5 as follows: 10 15 20 1. Subject to the provisions of this Act, and not- Conditions withstanding any agreement to the contrary, whether under made before or after the passing thereof : (1) A tenant of a holding may at any time apply in (a) directing his immediate landlord or any (b) extending the duration of the tenancy as against his immediate landlord to any date beyond the date of the termination thereof which may previously have been agreed between the parties or their predecessors in title, or to which the same may previously have been extended by any such order, and as against any superior landlord to any date which landlord or tenant may apply to tribunal. |