CO129-468 - Governor Sir Stubbs - 1921 [6-8] — Page 450

1

:

-8-

446

tenants of purely domestic tenements should be required to give

three months notice. This seems to be outside the scope of the

Ordinance, which is to protect tenants and not landlords, and there

seems to be no reason why to give landlords a longer notice than

they themselves had stipulated for, especially as new tenants can

always be found during the existing shortage and the Ordinance

cease to exist when the shortage comes to an end.

15.

Another proposal was that tenants should not be allowed to

assign or sub-let without the permission of the landlord. Here

111

again there seems to be no reason for altering by statute the terms

of the tenancy agreed upon between the parties, and the landlords

who asked for this provision could not point to any danger which it

would avoid. Probably the landlorda are afraid that some tenants

may transfer their tenancies in consideration of a premium, or may

transfer them to persons who will be prepared not to insist on the

standard rent, and the landlords would naturally like to have this

opportunity in their own hands. The possibility undoubtedly

exists, but there seems to be no reason why the legislature should

assist one party rather than the other to acquire a gain which is

contrary to the spirit of the Ordinance.

16.

It was also suggested that farmers of house property should

be allowed to collect from their tenants only a certain percentage

over the rent payable by the farmers to their immediate lessors,

The answer to this is that such a provision would be ineffectual

without a standard rent and is unnecessary with a standard rent.

In any case it would have been impossible to lay down a uniform per-

centage. Farmers whose receipts are affected by the Ordinance

are given by section 5 a right to apply to the court for a revision

of the rent payable by them to their immediate lessors.

Page 450Page 451