ABSTRACT
Local authorities were enabled to apply a ‘code of good management’ to houses in multiple occupation, to require certain services to be provided and to fix the maximum number of inhabitants who should live in a house. Local authorities have a power—not a duty—to register houses in multiple occupation, subject to the approval of the Ministry. Multiple occupation covered such a wide range of conditions that registration would cover a large number of houses over which control was quite unnecessary and for which the powers in the legislation were not designed. The 1964 Act provides new and very drastic powers for dealing with the worst cases of mismanagement of multi-occupied houses. Where a house in multiple occupation is in an unsatisfactory state and manifestly is in need of improvement, a local authority can make a management order. Houses in multiple occupation, like most other lettings, are affected by the 1965 Rent Act.
