Housing and Town Development (Scotland) Act 1957

PART III Miscellaneous Modifications of Principal Act

20 Payments in respect of unfit but well-maintained houses

(1) For the purposes of any payment made after the commencement of this Act under section forty of the principal Act (which provides for payments to be made in respect of unfit houses which have been well maintained) the Secretary of State may from time to time, by order made by statutory instrument, vary the multipliers specified with respect to rateable value in paragraph (b) of subsection (2) of the said section forty:

Provided that an order under this subsection shall be of no effect until it is approved by a resolution of each House of Parliament.

(2) If—

(a) a house has, after the commencement of this Act, been vacated in pursuance of a demolition order or closing order, or purchased compulsorily under subsection (1) of section seventeen of the principal Act or section three of the Housing (Repairs and Rents) (Scotland) Act, 1954, in lieu of the making of a demolition order in respect thereof; and

(b) any person has, within three months after the service of the demolition or closing order, or of the notice of determination to purchase required by subsection (3) of the said section three, or after the confirmation of a compulsory purchase order, made a representation to the local authority that the house has been well maintained and that the good maintenance of the house is attributable wholly or partly to work carried out by him or at his expense ; and

(c) leaving out of account any sanitary defects in or related to the house, the representation is correct;

the local authority shall make to that person in respect of that house the like payment as would have fallen to be so made under the said section forty if the house had been a house to which that section applies and directions had been given by the Secretary of State for the making of a payment thereunder.

(3) If, on receiving a representation under the last foregoing subsection, the local authority consider that the condition specified in paragraph (c) of that subsection is not satisfied, they shall serve upon the person by whom the representation was made notice that no payment falls to be made to him under that subsection; and subsections (1) and (3) of section sixteen of the principal Act (which provides for an appeal against certain notices and orders under Part II of that Act) shall apply in relation to any notice under this subsection as it applies in relation to a notice under the said Part II requiring the execution of works.

(4) For the purposes of this section, a house which might have been the subject of a demolition order but which has, without the making of such an order, been vacated and demolished in pursuance of an undertaking for its demolition given to the local authority shall be deemed to have been vacated in pursuance of a demolition order made and served at the date when the undertaking was given.

(5) In this section, except where the context otherwise requires, the following expressions have the meanings hereby assigned to them respectively, that is to say—

• " closing order " means an order made in lieu of a demolition order by virtue of the proviso to subsection (4) of section nine of the principal Act;

• " demolition order " means a demolition order made under Part II of the principal Act.

21 Registers of rents of dwellings provided or improved with the assistance of improvement grants

(1) It shall be the duty of every local authority to make and keep a register, in such form as may be prescribed by the Secretary of State by regulations made in accordance with section one hundred and seventy-three of the principal Act, in which they shall record in relation to every dwelling to which section one hundred and fourteen of the principal Act (which relates to the conditions to be observed with respect to dwellings in respect of the provision or improvement of which improvement grants have been made) applies—

(a) the amount to which the rent is limited by virtue of paragraph (c) of subsection (1) of that section;

(b) any increase of the said amount authorised by virtue of section one hundred and eighteen of the principal Act;

(c) any reduction of the said amount effected by virtue of subsection (2) of section sixteen of, and paragraph 9 of the Third Schedule to, the Valuation and Rating (Scotland) Act, 1956; and

(d) such other information as may be prescribed in the regulations.

(2) A register kept by a local authority under this section shall be made available for inspection by the public at the principal office of the authority during all normal business periods.

(3) Regulations made under this section may provide for the issue by a local authority of extracts of entries in the register kept by them under this section, and for the charging by the local authority of a fee, not exceeding one shilling, in respect of each entry contained in any extract issued in accordance therewith; and any extract so issued shall be evidence of the matters set out therein.

22 Special procedure for completion of compulsory acquisition of land under certain provisions

(1) If the Secretary of State is satisfied, in the case of a compulsory purchase order submitted to him by a local authority under the principal Act or Part I of the Housing (Repairs and Rents) (Scotland) Act, 1954, that, as respects the whole or any part of the land to which the order relates—

(a) reasonable inquiry has been made and it is not practicable to ascertain the name or address of the owner of the land or that part thereof, or

(b) the land or that part thereof is owned by such number of persons that the obtaining of a separate title from each would cause undue delay, or

(c) any other special circumstances exist which, in his opinion, make it necessary or expedient that the power conferred on him by this section should be exercised,

he may include in the order as confirmed by him a direction that the provisions of the Sixth Schedule to the Town and Country Planning (Scotland) Act, 1945, shall apply to the order, or, as the case may be, to the order so far as it relates to the part of the land in question:

Provided that no such direction shall be so included in a compulsory purchase order unless application in that behalf is included in the order as submitted to the Secretary of State.

(2) A compulsory purchase order which contains any direction under this section shall, as soon as may be after the order becomes operative, be recorded by the local authority in the appropriate Register of Sasines.

(3) References in the said Sixth Schedule to a purchase order providing for expedited completion, to the purchasing authority or to subsection (2) of section thirty-six of the Town and Country Planning (Scotland) Act, 1947, shall be construed, for the purposes of this section, as references respectively to a compulsory purchase order containing a direction under this section, to the local authority authorised to acquire land by that order and to subsection (2) of this section.

(4) Paragraph 3 of the Second Schedule to the Acquisition of Land (Authorisation Procedure) (Scotland) Act, 1947, and subsection (1) of section thirty-eight of the principal Act (which provide for early entry on land) and paragraph 4 of that Schedule and sub-paragraph (iv) of paragraph 2 of the Third Schedule to the principal Act (which make special provision, with respect to the sale of parts of houses and other premises) shall not apply to a compulsory purchase order containing any direction under this section.

(5) In relation to any compulsory purchase order containing a direction under this section, any words in any enactment importing a reference to service of a notice to treat shall be construed as including a reference to the constructive service of such a notice which, by virtue of this section and paragraph 1 of the Sixth Schedule to the said Act of 1945, is to be deemed to have been served.

23 Grants and advances to Scottish Special Housing Association

(1) The Secretary of State may, with the consent of the Treasury, make to the Scottish Special Housing Association payments in respect of such number of houses provided by the Association as he may determine, being—

(a) houses provided in the district of any local authority as respects which the Secretary of State is satisfied—

(i) that there is an urgent need for more housing accommodation which will be met only if such accommodation is provided by the local authority or the Association, and

(ii) that all accommodation so required cannot be provided by the local authority without imposing an unreasonably heavy rate burden or necessitating the charging of unreasonably high rents for that accommodation and other accommodation provided by the authority; or

(b) houses provided in pursuance of arrangements such as are mentioned in subsection (1) of section eight of this Act.

(2) A payment under the foregoing subsection shall consist in respect of each completed house of an annual contribution for a period of sixty years of an amount, in each year, equal to the annual contribution or, as the case may be, the sum of the annual contributions, which would have been payable in that year under subsection (7) of section eighty-four and sections eighty-six, eighty-eight and eighty-nine of the principal Act, and sections two, three and four of this Act, if the house had been a house provided by a local authority.

(3) No payment shall be made by the Secretary of State under section ninety-three of the principal Act (which relates to grants to the Scottish Special Housing Association) in respect of any house for which proposals, accompanied by such information as is required by the Secretary of State as to the estimated cost of erection of the house, were or are received by the Secretary of State on or after the first day of August, nineteen hundred and fifty-six.

(4) Where the Secretary of State is satisfied that the total net annual expenditure (as calculated in accordance with rules made by the Secretary of State) necessarily incurred in any year by the Scottish Special Housing Association in providing houses in respect of which payments fall to be made under section ninety-three of the principal Act and this section is greater than the sum of the said payments for that year, the Secretary of State may, with the approval of the Treasury, make such further contribution to the Association as he may determine.

(5) Subsection (1) of section ninety-four of the principal Act (which provides for the making by the Secretary of State of advances to the Scottish Special Housing Association) shall have effect—

(a) as if the reference in paragraph (a) thereof to the provision of houses under section ninety-three of the principal Act included a reference to the provision of such houses as are mentioned in subsection (1) of this section, and

(b) with the addition, at the end of the subsection, of the following proviso, that is to say—

" Provided that the aggregate amount of the advances made under this subsection shall not exceed one hundred million pounds.".

(6) Any reference in this section to a house shall include a reference—

(a) to any housing accommodation which, if it were provided by a local authority, would be deemed to be a house for the purposes of subsection (7) of section eighty-four or section eighty-nine of the principal Act, and

(b) to any building provided in connection with housing accommodation provided by the Scottish Special Housing Association, being a building which in the opinion of the Secretary of State will serve a beneficial purpose in connection with the requirements of the persons for whom the housing accommodation is provided.

24 Minor modifications of principal Act

The principal Act shall have effect subject to the modifications specified in Part II of the First Schedule to this Act, being modifications of a minor character.