466
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HONGKONG LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL
during the house shortage a landlord will have no difficulty in getting fresh ten- ants.
premises, it is either for an old business or for a new business. If it is an old business, the purchaser has his old premises in which he can remain, or, if it is a new business,
It has also been proposed to prohibit then I say, again, that the old estab-tong names in new leases. This subject lished businesses have the greater claim has been discussed for many years here on us than any new businesses. But the and has always been found too difficult rock upon which the proposal would
for solution. We could not make a pro- split is the difficulty of providing against vision of this kind apply to old leases bad faith. The buyer would always say that and in new leases the landlord can he intended to start a business but
always refuse to accept a tong name and failure to secure capital, or arrange demand an individual name. credits. Or other circumstances over which he had no control had prevented his doing so and he would proceed to let the house to somebody else.
C
**
tenants
or
Another proposal was that should not be allowed to transfer sub-let without the consent of the land- lord. I find it rather difficult to dis- cover the object of this proposal. The new tenant cannot legally be required, if the old tenant transfers his tenancy, to pay any more than the olá tenant. If the object of this proposal We is that the landlord may get any squeeze or illicit gain, which is con- trary to the spirit of the Ordinance, then I submit that we ought not to help the tandford to get that. There is always a danger that a tenant may hand over to someone else in return for premium, or an increased rent, and risk the tenant taking advantage of the Ordinance. I submit we ought not to help the land- lord to get that illicit gain and that there is no reason for this proposal.
The suggestion has been made that the Bill should not apply to existing leases con- taining a clause to the effect that on sale of the property the landlord shall be entitled to turn out the tenants by giving a certain length of notice. are told there are many of these cases. If there are, I think that any provision of this kind would cause very great hardship. For example, it would result in what is known as the "Broadwood Terrace case >> being taken out of the scope of the Bill altogether.
It is also proposed that the Bill should be extended to the case of offices and godowns. That case depends on entirely different considerations from the case of domestic tenements. The object of the Bill is to keep a roof over the heads of existing occupiers, to give them somewhere to live and sleep; it is not to protect trade generally but merely domestic tenements. The tenants' petition asks for schools and club-houses to be included. If they are used for human occupation, they are included; if not, they are outside the scope of the Bill."
It has also been suggested that the Bill should provide that tenants should be required to give six months' notice in the case of shops, and three months' notice in the case of purely domestic tenancies, if they wish to terminate their tenancies. I submit that that is outside the scope of the Bill. The object of the Bill is to protect tenants, not landlords. In the present shortage. I think, that it is no hardship to landlords if tenants leave on giving the usual notice. I see no reason whatever for altering the terms of the tenancies to which the landlords have agreed. The Bill will only be in force during the house shortage, and
Certain persons have asked as to farmers' leases. They are not extended by the Bill. No lease that covers more than a single building is extended by the Bill.
the
Another proposal was that the Bill should provide that rent should be recoverable only in respect of calendar months. When the Republic was founded the attempt was made to introduce Gregorian calendar but I understand that the Chinese generally use the old calendar, except in dealings with Euro- peans, and 1 think it would be a mistake to deal with such a very widespread custom as the use of the Chinese moon instead of the calendar month.
The only other proposal I want to mention 19 that the standard rent should be the rent on the 30th June pro- vided it is not more than 10 per cent. over the rent on the 31st December.
We found that the rents last December were so high and have been increased so much since then in many cases that the fairest course seemed to be to take the rent on the 31st December.
HONGKONG LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL
lease.
88
I would like to mention shortly the had been agreed upon in writing at some principal amendments which I will pro-date before the Ist day of January, 1918, pose in the Bill. The first one appears in paragraph (b) to clause 2 and the
or (b) was not higher than the rent re- coverable from the tenant in actual oc- effect of it is to bring within the Billcupation on the 1st day of January, 1918, every hotel and boarding house falling it shall be lawful for the lessor of such within the boarding house rules. There tenement to apply to the court to fix are six classes of boarding houses affect such other rent than the standard rent ed: Chinese hotels, 1st and 2nd class as the court shall think fit as the rent boarding houses, emigrants' lodging to be paid in respect of such tenement houses, places where employers of labour during the continuance of this Ordin- lodge their employés, and Chinese sea ance, provided that nothing in this men's boarding houses. We propose to include these because
section shall affect any rent which be- they are used not merely by visitors
came due before the commencement of but by manent residents
per this Ordinance, and provided that no- as well, and also by thing in this section shall entitle any persons whose presence here is essential lessor, during the currency of any written to the trade of the Colony. It is pro- lease of any domestic tenement for a posed to add a further paragraph to sub- definite and unexpired term, to any rent clause 1 of clause 4 providing that, if higher than the rent reserved in such a lessor bona fide requires possession of domnestic tenement to pull it down or to reconstruct it so as to make it a new building under the Public Health Ordinance, then he shall be entitled to turn the tenant out on giving three months' notice. An amendment to sub- clause 6 of clause 4 is intended to pro vide that nothing in this Ordinance is to affect the operation of the sections of the Public Health Ordi ance which give power to turn tenants out of a house, without any notice at all, when it has become dangerous. The proposed new sub-clause 5 of clause 4 is taken from the English Act and provides that if the lessor has obtained possession and it is made to appear subsequently that the order was obtained by concealment misrepresentation the Court may award such damages to the tenant as it may think fit.
2
or
It is also proposed to add six clauses to the Bill, Noa, 12 to 17. Clause 12 will give the as- sessor power to altor the valuation where the present valuation is based on rents higher than the rents last December. It is only fair that if a landlord has re- turned a higher figure on account of in- creased rent and is now going back to the December rent his assessment should also be reduced
There are two drafts of Clause 13: the clause which it is now proposed to move is the second draft. It provides that:—
If
the rent
recoverable from the tenant in actual
occupation of domestic tenement on the 31st day of December, 1920, (a) was a rent which
any
pro-
The 1st January, 1918, was taken because that was just before the rents of perty began to go up. We understand that the rents of Chinese property began to rise early in 1918 and of European property not materially till after that, the middle of the next year. But we felt that it was impossible to discriminate between the two classes of property.
allow the lessor to charge a higher rent Clause 14 provides that the Court may is he has spent or spends $500 or up- wards in improvement of the property which would have the effect of increasing the rateable value.
man
Clause 15 provides, in effect, that if a is lessee of two or three houses and keep one or two floors himself for his family and servants, and his lease expires, he shall not be entitled to keep possession of the whole of the property. The bulk of it goes back to the landlord, and the former lessee is only entitled to retain possession of the part he occupies him- Belf, so that any advantage of increased rents will go to the landlord and not to the lessee. That is only fair, because the tenant's lease is only for a definite term and that term-in the case I have put-will have expired.
Clause 16 deals with "shoe money." It does not prohibit it generally, but provides that no person shall as a condition or a pre- tended condition of the grant, renewal person, of a tenancy of any domestic or continuance, by himself or any other tenement, demand payment of any sum
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