UNPAID RENTS

Evening Post, Volume CV, Issue 110, 10 May 1923, Page 7

UNPAID RENTS

WEST SCOTLAND PROBLEM

LEGISLATIVE AID GIVEN

(BNITED PRESS ASSOCIATION.—OOPIMOBT.) {AUSTRALIAN - NEW ZEALAND CAULS ASSOCIATION.) LONDON, 9th May. The Rent Increases Bill was read a third time in the House of Commons by 286 votes to 169.

A chaotic situation has existed for some time, particularly on the Clyde, where there has been open warfare between landlords and tenants. The Courts have been powerless to intervene. Twenty thousand householders at Glasgow and tens of thousands at Paisley, Dumbarton, Clydebank, Renfrew, and other places in West Scotland have been deliberately withholding their rent for months. The landlords at one stage refused, as a result of the attitude of the tenants,, to pay the rates, and the local body machinery was .thrown out of gear. The trouble Began in 1920, when the majority of the factors failed serve the formal notices to quit before raising the rents to the limit allowed by the Rent Reservation Act. Because of this omission, the House of Lords decided that all such increases Were illegal. As an upshot the tenants were entitled, owing to over-payments, to sit rent free for from nine to twelve months. Over 80 per cent, of the Glasgow houses were affected, involving a rental of £3,000,000. When introducing the Bill, Sir Douglas Hogg (AttorneyGeneral) explained that it would legalise rent increases notices from December. Landlords could not recover arrears not collected before December, but arrears kept back since Ist December would be recoverable.