I move amendment 6:—
New section. Before Section 13 to insert a new section as follows:—
13.—(1) Where a sanitary authority serves under the Public Health Acts, 1878 to 1931, or the Housing of the Working Classes (Ireland) Acts, 1890 to 1921, a notice on the tenant of a tenement requiring the execution by such tenant of any work which is an improvement within the meaning of this Act, such tenant shall within three days after the service of such notice on him serve on the landlord of such tenement a notice (in this Act referred to as a sanitary work notice) in the prescribed form stating the fact of the service of such notice by such sanitary authority and stating the material portions of such notice.
(2) Where a sanitary work notice is served on the landlord of a tenement such landlord may, within three days after such service, serve on the tenant of such tenement a notice (in this Act referred to as a sanitary work undertaking) in the prescribed form undertaking to execute such work in consideration of either (as such landlord shall state in such notice) a specified increase of rent or an increase of rent to be fixed by the court.
(3) Whenever the landlord of a tenement has served under and in accordance with this section a sanitary work undertaking on the tenant of such tenement the following provisions shall have effect, that is to say:—
(a) the service of such undertaking shall have the same effect as the service on such tenant of an improvement undertaking, and the provisions of this Act in relation to an improvement undertaking shall apply accordingly; and
(b) such tenant may serve on the sanitary authority a copy of such sanitary work undertaking and thereupon the obligation to comply with the notice served by the sanitary authority and the liability for failure to comply with such notice shall be transferred to and become and be the obligation and liability of such landlord in exoneration of such tenant.
(4) Where a tenant has served a sanitary work notice on his landlord and such landlord has not, within three days after such service, served on such tenant a sanitary work undertaking in respect of such sanitary work notice, such tenant shall be entitled to execute as an improvement the work mentioned in the notice the service of which by the sanitary authority occasioned the service of such sanitary notice.
This new section, the subject of this amendment, is very technical. It deals with the work that is done by a tenant under the order of a sanitary authority. Now both the landlord and the tenant are liable to the sanitary authority when an order has been made for sanitary work to be done under the Public Health Acts and the other Acts. The form that the notice takes is that it is addressed to the occupier or owner, the occupier for all practical purposes meaning the tenant and the owner meaning the landlord. The owner is defined in the Public Health Acts as the person who is in receipt of the rack rent. Under the present law, if a tenant does the work that he is ordered to do by this notice he may or he may not be entitled to be recouped by his landlord. That depends on the contract of tenancy between them. In most cases, if the sanitary work has to be done outside the house, it is quite probable that the landlord is liable as between himself and the tenant: that he would have to pay if the tenant does not; but where the work is to be done inside it is very often the tenant who would have to do it under the contract of tenancy. If it is the landlord's job the tenant can recover if he does the work, so he does not want any other remedy. But if it is the tenant's job, then he cannot recover under the present law, but there is a kind of sanitary work as to which that would be unfair to the tenant. There is a kind of sanitary work which very often occurs where what is done is an improvement which will add to the letting value of the tenement, and for that kind of work, although the tenant is not entitled to recover from the landlord under the present law, it is quite clear that he should be entitled to recover.
For that reason, that kind of sanitary work was attempted to be dealt with by the Bill as it came to this House. It was dealt with in sub-section (5) of Section 16. Sanitary work of this nature done by a tenant was so different from the improvements to which he would be entitled under the general provisions of the Bill that it had to be dealt with quite separately. That is why it was dealt with by sub-section (5) of Section 16. The way it was dealt with was this: that the improvement notice that the tenant had to serve on the landlord in the ordinary way in order to entitle him to recover compensation for improvements at the end of his tenancy was declared not to be necessary in the case of sanitary work. That is how the matter was left and how it came to this House. That was not fair to the landlord, because it deprived him of the right of what was called in the Bill an improvement undertaking. Under Section 12 of the Bill, where a tenant wants to get compensation for improvements at the end of his tenancy, he has as a condition to serve on the landlord, before he begins to make an improvement, what is called an improvement notice. Having served that notice, the landlord then has two months within which to make up his mind whether he will do it himself or not. If he makes up his mind within the two months to do it, he then serves on the tenant an improvement undertaking. If he does that the tenant has nothing more to do. What he intended to do is done by the landlord and the thing is over. As the Bill came to this House, in the case of sanitary work the landlord had no chance of saying "I will do it myself." He could not have the chance of saying it, because the sanitary notice always required the thing to be done in a limited few days —about three days, but never more than ten.
Sub-section (1) of the new section that I am proposing requires the tenant, when he has been served by the sanitary authority with an order, to communicate to his landlord within three days the fact that he has been served with that notice and roughly what he is required to do. With regard to the provisions laid down under sub-section (3) of the new section, the tenant gets off altogether, so far as the sanitary authority is concerned, if the landlord undertakes to do the work.
Amendment 8 must be considered with this amendment. It proposes to add at the end of the existing sub-section (5) the words: "but a tenant shall not be entitled to compensation in respect of such work unless such tenant has served on his landlord a sanitary work notice in respect of such work and has become entitled under this Act to execute such work as an improvement." That is to say, if he fails to carry out the conditions under the new Section 13 by serving notice on his landlord within three days, he cannot recover compensation for what he does as an improvement under this Act. It may seem that that is a little hard on the tenant, but we must recollect that the tenant is acquiring an absolutely new right under this Act. This new section only applies to a case where only for this Bill the tenant could not recover any compensation at all. It gives him a new right to recover compensation for the sanitary improvement which brings the landlord no chance of a larger rent. The three days is, of course, short notice, but it cannot be helped. The sanitary notice is so short that if the landlord is not to be deprived of his right, the same rights that he has under the rest of the Bill, of serving an undertaking to do the work himself, then it must be done within some short period like three days. The landlord himself must make up his mind whether or not he is going to avail of this right within another three days.
