Clause 3. — (Restrictions on Operation of Foregoing Sections.)

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 26 November 1964.

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Photo of Mr Graham Page Mr Graham Page , Crosby 12:00, 26 November 1964

I beg to move Amendment No. 39, in page 3, line 37, at the end to insert: (a) a tenancy of premises in respect of which a contract for sale or letting with vacant possession was made prior to 13th November 1964, and in respect of which the vendor or the prospective lessor (as the case may be) had at the time of the contract the right to obtain possession on or before the date fixed for completion of the sale or the commencement of the letting. This Amendment is intended to meet the case where, before the Bill was published, the owner of property has entered into a contract for sale of the property or for letting the property, in either case with vacant possession, relying on the fact that he could get vacant possession under the law at the time he entered into the contract. It may not be that he would get vacant possession at the time he entered into the contract to sell or to let but that, at the time the contract fell to be completed, he had the right to obtain possession.

If the Bill comes into operation, the owner would find that he had contracted to do something which the law now says he cannot do. To that extent, the Bill would be retrospective. One cannot expect the owner of every property to gaze into the crystal and see what the Government intend to do at some future time. In the Amendment I have chosen the date on which the Bill was published. I do not wish to protect the person who has had an opportunity of reading the Bill and has then sold his property with vacant possession when there is a tenant in it. I wish to protect the man who has taken action in reliance on the law as it stood before the Bill was published—in fact, as it stands today, but today he knows that it is going to be altered. Before 13th November he could not have had a clue as to when the Bill might come in, or how it might alter the law.

There are many cases—I have been informed of them in practice, and I have some of them in my office—where a contract of sale has been entered into before anyone knew the contents of the Bill. Those contracts were entered into in reliance on the fact that the tenant was obliged to go. He had been given notice, his tenancy was ending, and he would be obliged to go before the owner had to complete. I think that we ought to avoid retrospective legislation, and specifically in this Bill relieve the hardship which will fall not only on the owner who has contracted to sell in that way, but on the purchaser as well, or the prospective tenant.

I am sure that all those who have had anything to do with the purchase and sale of houses in the last few years knows that this is a chain event. Seldom is there one transaction at a time. There is a whole chain of contracts for sale all being completed at or about the same time, with owners moving from house to house. It may well be that unless we relieve the man who has entered into a contract in that way we shall cause hardship not only to the parties to the contract, but to many others in the chain of events which surrounds that contract.