Housing Renovation in UK Law

The words "reasonable expense" cannot be construed in vacuo. Those words, however, are not exhaustive; these are only two factors (very important ones) which have to be taken into account in considering the reasonableness of the expense.There is another factor which to my mind is important, and that is that under section 46 of the Act, Mrs Harrington will qualify for a grant of 50 per cent of the cost of carrying out the work.

As Viscount Radcliffe observed, in giving the Judgment of the Board in Commissioner of Taxes v. Nchanga Consolidated Copper Mines Ltd. 1964 Appeal Cases, page 948 at page 959, "…. Where, however, there is evidence which is accepted by the court as establishing a sound commercial accounting practice conflicting with no statute, that normally is the end of the matter. The court adopts the practice, applies it and decides the case accordingly.

The 1974 Act itself provides remedies against errors or excesses on the part of inspectors and enforcing authorities. I would decline to add the possibility of an action in negligence to the statutory remedies.

We turn to the question of how the judge should have disposed of this case. As we have pointed out, the judge declined to stop the case at the close of the prosecution evidence. At that stage it could be seen that there was no basis upon which a reasonable jury could conclude that there was a risk of the type which section 3 identifies.

Elementary fairness requires that before a person can be bound by the acts of another purporting to act on his behalf, that other must have his authority to bind him in the matter. In the language of estoppel, there is nothing unconscionable in a person denying what another has come to believe and acted upon to his detriment if that person has not, either himself or through his agents, allowed the other to reach that belief.

In order to come to that conclusion it is necessary to give full weight to paragraph 7 of Schedule 6 of the Regulations. That paragraph, as it seems to me, is capable of a broad interpretation or a narrow interpretation.