Leasehold Property (Repairs) Act 1938
Leasehold Property (Repairs) Act, 1938
(1 & 2 Geo. 6.) CHAPTER 34.
An Act to amend the law as to the enforcement by landlords of obligations to repair and similar obligations arising under leases.
[23rd June 1938]
B E it enacted by the King's most Excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, in this present Parliament assembled, and by the authority of the same, as follows:—
1 Restriction on enforcement of repairing covenants in long leases of small houses.
(1) Where a lessor serves on a lessee under subsection (1) of section one hundred and forty-six of the Law of Property Act, 1925 , a notice that relates to a breach of a covenant or agreement to keep or put in repair during the currency of the lease a house of a rateable value of one hundred pounds or less, and at the date of the service of the notice five years or more of the term of the lease remain unexpired, the lessee may within twenty-eight days from that date serve on the lessor a counter-notice to the effect that he claims the benefit of this Act.
(2) A right to damages for a breach of such a covenant as aforesaid shall not be enforceable by action commenced at any time at which five years or more of the term of the lease remain unexpired unless the lessor has served on the lessee not less than one month before the commencement of the action such a notice as is specified in subsection (1) of section one hundred and forty-six of the Law of Property Act, 1925, and where a notice is served under this subsection, the lessee may, within twenty-eight days from the date of the service thereof, serve on the lessor a counter-notice to the effect that he claims the benefit of this Act.
(3) Where a counter-notice is served by a lessee under this section, then, notwithstanding anything in any enactment or rule of law, no proceedings, by action or otherwise, shall be taken by the lessor for the enforcement of any right of re-entry or forfeiture under any proviso or stipulation in the lease for breach of the covenant or agreement in question, or for damages for breach thereof, otherwise than with the leave of the court.
(4) A notice served under subsection (1) of section one hundred and forty-six of the Law of Property Act, 1925, in the circumstances specified in subsection (1) of this section, and a notice served under subsection (2) of this section shall not be valid unless it contains a statement, in characters not less conspicuous than those used in any other part of the notice, to the effect that the lessee is entitled under this Act to serve on the lessor a counter-notice claiming the benefit of this Act, and a statement in the like characters specifying the time within which, and the manner in which, under this Act a counter-notice may be served and specifying the name and address for service of the lessor.
(5) Leave for the purposes of this section shall not be given unless the lessor proves—
(a ) that the immediate remedying of the breach in question is requisite for preventing substantial diminution in the value of his reversion, or that the value thereof has been substantially diminished by the breach;
(b ) that the immediate remedying of the breach is required for giving effect in relation to the house to the purposes of any enactment, or of any byelaw or other provision having effect under an enactment, relating to the safety, repair, maintenance, or sanitary condition of houses, or for giving effect to any order...
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