Housing (Scotland) Act 1987

117 Undertakings to bring up to tolerable standard and suspension order

(1) Where a closing order or a demolition order has been made in respect of a house or building and not revoked, any owner of the house or building, or any person holding a heritable security over it, may give to the local authority, within a period of 21 days from the date of service of the order or such longer period therefrom as the authority may, either during or after the expiry of the 21 days, determine to be appropriate, an undertaking in writing—

(a) that he will within a specified period carry out such works as will, in the opinion of the local authority, bring the house or, as the case may be, all the houses in the building, up to the tolerable standard; or

(b) in the case of a building in respect of which a demolition order has been made, that no house in the building will be used for human habitation (unless at any time all the houses therein are brought up to the tolerable standard and the local authority agree that they have been so brought).

(2) If an undertaking is so given the local authority shall as soon as may be either—

(a) accept the undertaking and make in respect of it a suspension order suspending the closing order or, as the case may be, the demolition order, or

(b) reject the undertaking and serve on the person who gave the undertaking notice that they have done so.

(3) A suspension order shall cease to have effect on the expiry of one year from the date of its making unless renewed, at the discretion of the local authority, at the expiry of that year; and this subsection shall apply to any suspension order so renewed as it applies to the original order.

(4) A suspension order made or renewed by a local authority may be revoked by them at any time by order if they have reasonable cause to believe that there has been a breach of the undertaking in respect of which it was made or renewed.

(5) Any period—

(a) between the service of the closing order or demolition order and the service of a suspension order or a notice of rejection under subsection (2), and

(b) while a suspension order is in force,

shall be left out of account in reckoning in relation to the closing order or demolition order in question the period of 21 days referred to in sections 129(1) and 130.