The main object of this Bill will, I think, be non-controversial. It is to cure, with retrospective effect, a flaw in the Rent Restrictions Act, 1946. It was the intention of the Legislature in 1946 that a district justice sitting privately should have power to make a provisional order fixing the rents of small premises, whether or not they were let with some little furniture or with services, such as a supply of electricity. The High Court recently quashed two provisional orders, however, on the ground that a district justice has no power to apportion the rent of partly furnished or partly serviced premises as between the premises themselves and the furniture or the service and that only a court may make such an apportionment. The result is that applications from tenants of small premises which are partly furnished or partly serviced cannot be dealt with by a justice sitting privately.
Section 2 remedies this defect retrospectively, but not so as to validate a provisional order which has been quashed before this Bill is enacted. The two tenants whose provisional orders have been quashed now find themselves involved in arrears of rent because they became liable to pay the difference between the rents fixed by the orders and the original contract rents. Sections 3 and 4 of the Bill are intended to minimise this unfortunate consequence. Section 3 will enable a district justice to make a fresh and valid provisional order, the result of which will be to prevent any further accumulation of arrears. As regards the arrears which have accumulated, it is provided in Section 4 that the court will have discretion to stay the execution of a decree for the amount of the arrears, or of a decree for possession of the premises so long as the arrears are paid by instalments.
