DETERMINATION OF RENT BY RENT ASSESSMENT COMMITTEE (Hansard, 9 June 1988)

§ Mr. Grist
I beg to move amendment No. 30, in page 10 line 29, leave out 'an' and insert, 'a relevant'.

§ Mr. Deputy Speaker
With this it will be convenient to take Government amendment No. 31.

§ Mr. Grist
As drafted, clause 13(2) provides that, in determining the rent under an assured tenancy, the rent assessment committee is to take no account of any increase in value attributable to an improvement carried out in specified circumstances by a person who, at that time, was the tenant.
On reflection, it seems to us that the definition of improvement in this context needs to be drawn somewhat more tightly. It would seem inequitable that, when a tenant carries out improvements to a property and then subsequently surrenders his tenancy, a tenant under a subsequent letting should derive financial benefit from such improvements by virtue of the rent assessment committee being required to disregard them in determining the rent under the later tenancy.
We therefore propose to add to clause 13(2) a broadly similar provision to that in the comparable section of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1954. That will have the effect of confining the disregard requirement, either to an improvement carried out during the tenancy to which the notice of rent increase relates, or, alternatively, to an improvement carried out not more than 21 years before the date of service of the notice, provided that at all times since the improvement was carried out the property has been let under an assured tenancy and, on the coming to the end of an assured tenancy at any time during that period, the tenant—or, in the case of joint tenants, at least one of them—did not quit the property.

§ Mr. Grist
I beg to move amendment No. 32, in page 10, line 50, at end insert— `( ) In any case where—

(a) a rent assessment committee have before them at the same time the reference of a notice under section 6(2) above relating to a tenancy (in this subsection referred to as "the section 6 reference") and the reference of a notice under section 12(2) above relating to the same tenancy (in this subsection referred to as "the section 12 reference"), and

(b) the date specified in the notice under section 6(2) above is not later than the first day of the new period specified in the notice under section 12(2) above, and

(c) the committee propose to hear the two references together,

the committee shall make a determination in relation to the section 6 reference before making their determination in relation to the section 12 reference and, accordingly, in such a case the reference in subsection (1)(c) above to the terms of the tenancy to which the notice relates shall be construed as a reference to those terms as varied by virtue of the determination made in relation to the section 6 reference.' As drafted clause 13(1) provides for the rent assessment committee to determine the rent under an assured tenancy by reference to a notional tenancy, whose terms, other than in respect of the rent, are the same as those of the tenancy under consideration.
This amendment is designed to clarify the procedure to be followed by the rent assessment committee when it has before it a reference under clause 6 relating to the terms of a tenancy and a reference under clause 12 relating to the rent payable under that tenancy. The amendment provides that, when the date specified in the notice served under clause 6 is no later than the first day of the new period specified in the notice served under clause 12, and the rent assessment committee proposes, to consider the two references together, it shall make the determination of terms first and then proceed to determine the rent—as provided for in clause 13(l)—on the basis of the terms as varied by virtue of the determination previously made.