Sandwell Metropolitan Borough Council v Bujok: CA 1989

It was not necessary first to serve an abatement notice before commencing proceedings for statutory nuisance under s99. ‘. . . It is surely repugnant to common sense that in the area of legal activity a local authority should be prosecuted by one of its tenants without first being given opportunity to remedy the consequences of a neglect to repair the dwelling that tenant occupies. In law there is no doubt that [the tenant] was entitled to commence proceedings without giving notice of the state of the dwelling to the local authority. But in every other conceivable way I regard that action as wrong. Endless trouble to many people in courts and local authority offices and much money could be saved by giving notice of disrepair which it is to be supposed a local authority would appropriately react to. If they did not, then would be the time for a tenant to exercise the right to prosecute.

Watkins LJ
(1989) 88 LGR 521
Public Health Act 1936 99
England and Wales
Cited by:
Appeal fromSandwell Metropolitan Borough Council v Bujok HL 1990
An offence arose under the 1936 Act when a complaint was brought by an aggrieved person. A person was entitled to make a complaint under section 94 without first serving an abatement notice. . .

Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Nuisance

Updated: 27 December 2021; Ref: scu.221523