Section 35 Rent agreements: special provisions following conversion.

Subject to subsections (2) and (3) below, this section applies where a rent agreement with a tenant having security of tenure of a dwelling-house is entered into, whether before or after a tenancy becomes a converted tenancy, which is expressed to take effect—

This section shall not apply to any agreement where the tenant is neither the person who, at the time of the conversion, was the tenant, nor a person who might succeed the tenant at that time as a statutory tenant, and where this section has applied to any agreement, it shall not apply to any subsequent agreement relating to the dwelling-house which takes effect more than three years after the first such agreement took effect.

Where a rent is registered for the dwelling-house and the registration is subsequently cancelled, this section shall not apply to the agreement submitted to the rent officer in connection with the cancellation nor to any agreement which takes effect after the cancellation.

The provisions of this section are without prejudice to the requirements imposed by section 34 above.

The following requirements shall be observed with respect to any such agreement as is mentioned in subsection (1) above—

No such agreement shall take effect earlier than 28 days after it is lodged with the rent officer under subsection (5)(b) above, and it may only take effect on or after that date if the rent officer has not before that date notified both the landlord and the tenant in writing that he proposes to treat the agreement as an application for the registration of a rent for the dwelling-house under Part V of this Act made jointly by the landlord and the tenant.

The rent officer may treat an agreement as such a joint application as is referred to in subsection (6) above before the conversion if an application for the registration of a rent could have been made by virtue of section 38 of the M1Housing (Financial Provisions) (Scotland) Act 1972.

A rent officer may treat an agreement as such a joint application only if he is satisfied that the rent payable under the agreement exceeds a fair rent for the dwelling-house.

Where an agreement is treated by the rent officer as such a joint application then, subject to subsection (10) below, Schedule 5 to this Act shall apply as if the application had been made to him and as if any reference in that Schedule to the rent specified in the application included a reference to the rent expressed to be payable under the agreement.

For the purposes of subsection (9) above, paragraph 3(1)

of the said Schedule 5 shall have effect as if for the words “he may register that rent without further proceedings” there were substituted the words “he shall notify both the landlord and the tenant in writing that he is no longer treating the agreement as a joint application for the registration of a rent and that the agreement may take effect on or after the date of such notification if that date is later than 28 days after the agreement was lodged with him.”

The rent officer shall make available for public inspection, without charge, any agreement which has been lodged with him under this section unless the agreement is treated by him as a joint application for the registration of a rent and a rent is subsequently registered in pursuance of such application; and any agreement which is made available for public inspection under this subsection shall be so available for a period of three years from the date which is 28 days after it has been lodged with the rent officer.

A copy of such an agreement certified by the rent officer or any person duly authorised by him shall be receivable in evidence, and shall be sufficient evidence of the agreement in any court F1or tribunal and in any proceedings.

A person requiring such a certified copy shall be entitled to obtain it on payment of the prescribed fee.

No stamp duty shall be chargeable on any agreement to which this section applies which contains—