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THE NEW LAW OF DISTRESS.í

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Rhannu

THE NEW LAW OF DISTRESS. í On Thursday, Nov. 1st the Law of Distress Amendment Act came fully into force in England, and tenants who were behindhand in their rent breathed more freely. Scotland and Ireland, which have their own procedures, are. of course, necessarily left out in the cold. The new Statute puts landlords in the same position as County Court creditors, and extends to tenants a degree of protection which has been enjoyed by poor debtors for more than forty years. It is no mere imaginary hardship that has thus been obviated. The time of the Metropolitan Police Magistrates is often occupied in listening to pitiful stories by tenants who have been left almost naked, in empty rooms, by the broker's men. Hitherto, practically, 110 such geods and chattels as are usually to be met with in the house's of the poor have been pri- vileged, unless they were the goods cf lodgers — which have enjoyed exemption during th; l:tst I seventeen years—or were "things in actual use." But now all that is changed. It is no longer necessary for a tenant in arrear to go to bed in his clothes in order to protect them from seizure. In future wearing apparel, belonging to either the tenant or his wife and family—that is, we assume, whether in wear or not—cannot be appropriated on any pretext whatever. And so, too. is all the bedding of the family, and their tools or implements of trade to the value of five pounds. This, as we have said, is merely a wider application of the principle already in force under the County Courts Act, 1846, which declared the same goods to be privileg ed from being delivered in execution. But, although it is not wholly new, its adaption to the neces- sities of tenants i-i not the less worthy of note. Landlords will lose little by having to forego their claim to the often scanty wardrobes and still scantier bedding of defaulting tenants. And it is I.'kely to prove a distinct boon to working mt who, perhaps, through no fault of their own, have got into arrears, to know that their "kit." on which the very livelihood of t3emselves and their familiesjdepends, is safe, whatever happens. Many charitable agencies, and, notably, the Mansion House Council, are largely occupied in helping men to redeem their tools, to the loss of which they owe their pauperism. Sempstresses, too, will have another terror taken from life, when their sewing machine, in itself representing the savings of years, is at last safe. And so through all the working world, of whose struggles and neces- sities so little is realized, the new Act will be hailed as a substantial measure of relief. A "distress" is said by the lawyers to be one of the most ancient and effectual remedies for the recovery of rent. It certainly is the latter. It is defined as the taking without legal process, goods as a pledge, with the object of compelling satisfaction, or securing redress. There seems j to be considerable confusion as to whether the expression applies strictly to the act of taking, to the thing taken, or to the remedy generally, with the result that it is loosely used, by those who ought to know better, to mean all three. Much of the hardship which has been felt under distress proceedings has been due to absolutely illegal conduct on the part of the officers con- ducting them. Practically irresponsible, and subject only to penalties so intricate and so costly as to be absolutely beyond the reach of the poor, the brokers and bailiffs have for centuiies ridden roughshod over their luckless victims. For some 0 weeks past, however, all over the country, applications for certificates have been made to the County Court Judcre.s under the Rules which have been issued by Lord Halsbury, in pursuance of the new Act. All "bailiffs" must take out certificates in all cases, before they can legally seize or sell goods, in the same way as is required by the Agricul- tural Holdings Act. General certificates, moreover will only be granted by a County Court Judge in person, upon proof, we imagine (although there is nothing to that effect in either the Act or the Rules), that the applicant is a fit and proper person for the post. And the possession of a certificate carries with it the liability to have that certificate cancelled. From this it will be seen that any one who imagines himself aggrieved; by the proceedings of a bailiff need not resort to personal violence, and so possibly subject himself to the mysterious penalties of the offence known as a "rescue and pound breach but by raising the question before the County Court Judge, he may bring 'I down condign punishment on the head of the offender. This, of course, is the best possible earnest of future good behaviour on the part of those jacks-in-office. For the rest, it may be added that the Rules provide that no certifi- cate is to bo granted to any officer of the County Court that any solicitor is entitled to a certifi- cate and that applicants who are rated at less value than twenty-five pounds per annum shall be required to give security for the due per- formance of their duties, which is liable to be 1 forfeited either with or without the certificate. Some of the sections of the Agricultural Holdings Act, 1883, are repealed by Section 9 of the Act. But this is easily explained. The Act of 1883 embodied sundry and divers changes in the law with regard to distress on agricultural or pastoral holdings, or market gardens. It was then provided, amongst other I I things, that the charges upon a listress for more than twenty pounds, till then subject to no statutory limit, should not exceed certain specified sums that appraisement before sale bhouldnot ba obligatory, and that the tenant or owner of thr; goods dis'rained should have, if he liked, fifteen days instead of five days in which tc replevy the goods, or, in other words, try the question of ownership, and that the articles should, if the tenant requested in writing, be removed to an auction room, or some other place selected by him, and there sold. Now ail these provisions are extended sold. Now all these provisions are extended and made of general force and effect. The table j of fees under the Rules seems to be calculated upon a fresh basis. Under the Act of 1817 x which only applied where the distress was for less than twenty pounds, the charge for a man in possession was fixed at half-a-crown a day, while under the new scale it is to be four shill- ings and sixpence a day. It is true, the man has now "to provide his own board in every case"—a fact which will relieve the feelings of bonsewives;in difficuUies but still the difference is considerable. Again there is, or rather was, no statutory limit to the fees on a distress for more than twenty pounds (except under the Agricultural Holdings Act) the only rule being I that the total amount must be reasonable. The hardship of this has frequently been pointed out. ¡ A general practice has, however, come into ¡ vegue of allowing half-a-crown a day for the man in possession, if the tenant keeps him. and. three shillings and sixpence if he keeps himself. Under the new scale, again, it will be found that in this case the charge allowed in addition, of course, to other outgoings, is five shillings a day. The fees show, therefore, a slight in- crease, but this is perhaps more than counter- balanced by the fact that any one who is un- fortunate enough to find the brokers in the house on his return home may ascertain to a nicety the amount of ready eash required to get them out again. The Distress for Rent Rules possess, iu short, a practical value. It may be as well to state that the Act does not extend to any case "where the lease, term, or interest of the tenant has expired, and where possession of the premises has been demanded, and where the distress is made not earlier than seven days' after such demand." The exact force of this limitation can only be understood when it has been construed by authority, but lnasehalders or tenants under agreements do not need to be protected like the very poor, and it would be obviously unjust to give them increased powers; of holding over.' As to its general application to those large classes of cases which it is in- tended to meet, there can be no doubt; and, although it remains to be seen how it will work there is no reason to think that it will not giv^ satisfactory results. It is, at any rate, some_ thing to know that, as well as fixtures; animal ferae naturae, goods sent to traders, things ins the custody of the law, goods of lodgers, rail way rolling stock, hired machinery, and breeding stock, beasts of the plough, and agisted stock, all of which, thanks to the influence of interested parties, have long enjoyed greater or lesser de- grees of exemption, the bare necessaries oFthe poor have been admitted into the charmed circle.

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