Houses in Multiple Occupation Act (Northern Ireland) 2016

Power to require persons connected to premises to produce documents

72.—(1) The council may, by serving notice on a relevant person, require the person to produce to the council any documents which—

(a) are specified or described in the notice, or fall within a category of document which is specified or described in the notice, and

(b) are in the person’s custody or under the person’s control.

(2) A notice under this section must—

(a) specify a date, not less than 21 days after the date on which the notice is served, by which the documents must be produced,

(b) specify a person to whom the documents must be produced, and

(c) include information about the possible consequences of not complying with the notice.

(3) A person to whom any document is produced in accordance with the notice may copy the document.

(4) Nothing in this section requires a person to produce a document if the person would be entitled to refuse to produce it in proceedings in the High Court on grounds of legal professional privilege.

(5) In this section—

“relevant person” has the same meaning as in section 71,

“document” includes information recorded otherwise than in legible form, and

in relation to information so recorded, any reference to the production of a document is a reference to the production of a copy of the information in legible form.