ing of the Working Classes Act, as slightly amended by the Housing Clauses of the Town Planning Act, provides that an order may be served on the owner of any house adjudged unfit for habitation, requiring him either to render it reasonably habitable or to close it down. If he does not render it reasonably habitable, or take steps towards doing so within three months, the local authority may demolish the house and charge the costs to the landlord. In the Town Planning Act it is also provided that, in the letting of houses adapted for the working classes, there shall be an implied contract that the house is at the start, and shall be throughout the tenancy, kept by the landlord "in all respects reasonably fit for human habitation." This obligation is enforcible by the local authority, and that body is empowered, if necessary, to execute such repairs as may be required at the landlord's expense.[1] When we have to do with a town which has always been, or has somehow become, free from
- ↑ Local Government Board Report for 1912-3, p. xxviii.
