The Leasehold Property (Repairs) Bill, which received a second 'reading
on Friday, furnishes another example of the abuses in the social system which have for long been practised in our midst unknown to the majority. It also serves to illustrate once again the value of Private Members' Bills in disclosing and rectifying such ales The object of this Bill is to limit the right of a lessor, under a long lease which has still some years to run, to enforce his tenant to undertake repairs unless these can be shown to be immediately necessary in order to prevent a substantial reduction in the value of the reversion. Existing law leaves a loophole by which speculators may buy up leases cheap some years before they expire and then compel the tenants, under threat of forfeiture, to carry out at once and with absolute exactitude the conditions of repair to which they have subscribed under their leases. • To the poor the diffi- culty of suddenly finding some Ao or L50 can easily be imagined, and forfeiture, the aim of the speculators, fre- quently results. The Bill, which all parties supported, should shortly become law.
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