Housing Renovation in UK Law

The next point taken on behalf of the landlord is taken under section 27, subsection (2) (a): 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.

In the many cases in which the courts have had to determine "What are the profits and gains?" 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.

Be that as it may, the question for us, left open in Welton -v- North Cornwall, is whether an enforcing authority, in giving advice that leads to the issue of Improvement or Prohibition Notices, owes a duty of care to the owner of the business enterprise in question. 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.

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. Whether he has will depend on the usual principles of agency. This applies, in my judgment, as much in the field of estoppel as it does in other contexts.

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 the full evidence of the history of safety and from the expert had not yet been given. However, at the close of all the evidence, in our view (although the judge is not to be criticised since no application was made), the case should have been withdrawn.

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.