Any local authority may, with the sanction of the Local Government Board, for the purpose of defraying any costs charges and expenses incurred or to fee incurred by them in the execution of the Sanitary Acts or of this Act, or for the purpose of discharging any loans contracted under the Sanitary Acts or this Act, borrow, or re-borrow, and take up at interest, any sums of money necessary for defraying any such costs charges and expenses, or for discharging any such loans as aforesaid.
An urban authority may borrow or re-borrow any such sums on the credit of any fund or all or any rates or rate out of which they are authorised to defray expenses incurred by them in the execution of this Act, and for the purpose of securing the repayment of any sums so borrowed, with interest thereon, they may mortgage to the persons by or on behalf of whom such sums are advanced any such fund or rates or rate.
A rural authority may borrow or re-borrow any such sums, if applied or intended to be applied to general expenses of such authority, on the credit of the common fund out of which such expenses are payable, and if applied or intended to be applied to special expenses of such authority, on the credit of any rate or rates out of which such expenses are payable, and for the purpose of securing the repayment of any sums so borrowed, with interest thereon, they may mortgage to the persons by or on behalf of whom such sums are advanced any such fund rate or rates.
The exercise of the powers of borrowing conferred by this Act shall be subject to the following regulations ; (namely,)
(1)Money shall not be borrowed except for permanent works, (including under this expression any works of which the cost ought in the opinion of the Local Government Board to be spread over a term of years) :
(2)The sum borrowed shall not at any time exceed, with the balances of all the outstanding loans contracted by the local authority under the Sanitary Acts and this Act, in the whole the assessable value for two years of the premises assessable within the district in respect of which such money may be borrowed:
(3)Where the sum proposed to be borrowed with such balances (if any) would exceed the assessable value for one year of such premises, the Local Government Board shall not give their sanction to such loan until one of their inspectors has held a local inquiry and reported to the said Board :
(4)The money may be borrowed for such time, not exceeding sixty years, as the local authority, with the sanction of the Local Government Board, determine in each case ; and, subject as aforesaid, the local authority shall either pay off the moneys so borrowed by equal annual instalments of principal or of principal and interest, or they shall in every year set apart as a sinking-fund, and accumulate in the way of compound interest by investing the same in the purchase of Exchequer Bills or other Government securities, such sum as will with accumulations in the way of compound interest be sufficient, after payment of all expenses, to pay off the moneys so borrowed within the period sanctioned :
(5)A local authority may at any time apply the whole or any part of the sinking fund set apart under this Act in or towards the discharge of the moneys for the repayment of which the fund has been established: Provided that they pay into the fund in each year and accumulate until the whole of the moneys borrowed are discharged, a sum equivalent to the interest which would have have been produced by the sinking fund or the part of the sinking fund so applied:
(6)Where money is borrowed for the purpose of discharging a previous loan, the time for repayment of the money so borrowed shall not extend beyond the unexpired portion of the period for which the original loan was sanctioned, unless with the sanction of the Local Government Board, and shall in no case be extended beyond the period of sixty years from the date of the original loan.
Where any urban authority borrow any money for the purpose of defraying private improvement expenses, or expenses in respect of which they have determined a part only of the district to be liable, it shall be the duty of such authority, as between the ratepayers of the district, to make good, so far as they can, the money so borrowed, as occasion requires, either out of private improvement rates, or out of a rate levied in such part of the district as aforesaid.
Where any local authority are possessed of any land works or other property for the purposes of disposal of sewage pursuant to this Act, they may borrow any moneys on the credit of such lands works or other property, and may mortgage such lands works or other property to any person advancing such moneys, in the same manner in all respects as if they were the absolute owner, both at law and in equity, of the lands works or other property so mortgaged. The moneys so borrowed shall be applied for purposes for which moneys may be borrowed under this Act; but it shall not be in any way incumbent on the mortgagees to see to the application of such moneys, nor shall they he responsible for any misapplication thereof.
The powers of borrowing conferred by this section shall, where the sums borrowed do not exceed three fourths of the purchase money of such lands (but not otherwise), be deemed to be distinct from and in addition to the general borrowing powers conferred on a local authority by this Act. Any local authority may pay out of any rates leviable by them for purposes of this Act the interest on any moneys borrowed by such authority in pursuance of this section.
Every mortgage authorised to be made under this Act shall be by deed, truly stating the date consideration and the time and place of payment, and shall be sealed with the common seal of the local authority, and may be made according to the form contained in Schedule IV to this Act, or to the like effect.
There shall be kept at the office of the local authority a register of the mortgages on each rate, and within fourteen days after the date of any mortgage an entry shall be made in the register of the number and date thereof, and of the names and description of the parties thereto, as stated in the deed. Every such register shall be open to public inspection; during office hours at the said office, without fee or reward ; and any clerk or other person having the custody of the sanle, refusing to allow such inspection, shall be liable to a penalty not exceeding five pounds.
Any mortgagee or other person entitled to any mortgage under this Act may transfer his estate and interest therein to any other person by deed duly stamped, truly stating its date and the consideration for the transfer ; and such transfers may be according to the form contained in Schedule IV to this Act, or to the like effect.
There shall be kept at the office of the local authority a register of the transfers of mortgage charged on each rate, and within thirty days after the date of such deed of transfer, if executed within the United Kingdom, or within thirty days after its arrival in the United Kingdom, if executed elsewhere, the same shall be produced to the clerk of the local authority, who shall, on payment of a sum not exceeding five shillings, cause an entry to be made in such register of its date, and of the names and description of the parties thereto, as stated in the transfer ; and until such entry is made the local authority shall not be in any manner responsible to the transferee.
On the registration of any transfer the transferee his executors or administrators shall be entitled to the full benefit of the original mortgage and the principal and interest secured thereby ; and any transferee may in like manner transfer his estate and interest in any such mortgage ; and no person except the last transferee his executors or administrators shall be entitled to release or discharge any such mortgage or any money secured thereby.
If the clerk of the local authority wilfully neglects or refuses to make in the register any entry by this section required to be made, he shall be liable to a penalty not exceeding twenty pounds.
If at the expiration of six months from the time when any principal money or interest has become due on any mortgage of rates 'made under this Act, and after demand in writing, the same is not paid, the mortgagee or other person entitled thereto may, without prejudice to any other mode of recovery, apply for the appointment of a receiver to a court of summary jurisdiction ; and such court may, after hearing the parties, appoint in writing under their hands and seals some person to collect and receive the whole or a competent part of the rates liable to the payment of the principal or interest in respect of which the application is made, until such principal or interest, or both, as the case may be, together with the costs of the application and of collection, are fully paid.
On such appointment being made all such rates, or such competent part thereof as aforesaid, shall be paid to the person appointed, and when so paid shall be so much money received by or to the use of the mortgagee or mortgagees of such rates, and shall be rateably apportioned between them :
Provided that no such application shall be entertained unless the sum or sums due and owing to the applicant amount to one thousand pounds, or unless a joint application is made by two or more mortgagees or other persons to whom there may be due, after such lapse of time and demand as last aforesaid, moneys collectively amounting to that sum.
Where any person has advanced money for any expenses which by this Act are, or by the local authority may be declared to be private improvement expenses, the local authority, on being satisfied by the report of their surveyor or otherwise that the money advanced by such person has been duly expended, may issue a grant in the form in Schedule 1V. to this Act to such person of a yearly rentcharge issuable out of the premises, in respect whereof such advance has been made, or out of such part thereof, to be specified in such grant, as the local authority may think proper and sufficient.
Such rentcharge shall be personal estate, and shall begin to accrue from the day of completion of the works on which the money advanced has been expended, and shall he payable by equal half-yearly payments during a term not exceeding thirty years, in such manner that the whole of the sum advanced, with the costs of preparing the said grant, together with interest thereon respectively, at a rate not exceeding six pounds per centum per annum on the sum from time to time remaining unpaid, shall be repaid at the end of the said term.
The provisions of this Act with respect to deduction from the rent of a proportion of private improvement rates, and with respect to redemption of private improvement rates, shall, mutatis mutandis, apply to rentcharges granted under this section.
Rentcharges issued in pursuance of this Act, and transfers thereof, shall be registered in the same manner respectively as mortgages and transfers are required to be registered under the provisions of this Act.
The Public Works Loan Commissioners may, if they see fit, on the application of any local authority, make any loan to such authority for any of the purposes of this Act on the security of any fund or rate applicable to any of the purposes of this Act, without requiring any further or other security.
The Public Works Loan Commissioners may, on the application of any local authority and on the recommendation of the Local Government Board, make any loan to such authority in pursuance of any powers of borrowing conferred by this Act, whether for works already executed or yet to be executed, on the security of any fund or rate applicable to any of the purposes of this Act, and without requiring any further or other security, such loan to be repaid within a period not exceeding fifty years, and to bear interest 'at the rate of three and a half per centum per annum, or such other rate as may, in the judgment of the Commissioners of the Treasury, be necessary, in order to enable the loan to be made without loss to the Exchequer :
Provided,—
(1)That in determining the time when a loan under this section shall be repayable, the Local Government Board shall have regard to the probable duration and continuing utility of the works in respect of which the same is required:
(2)That this section shall not extend to any loan required for the purpose of defraying expenses incurred by the Local Government Board in the performance of the duty of a defaulting local authority after the passing of the Public Health Act, 1872.
In the case of a loan made before the passing of the Public Health Act, 1872, to any local authority in pursuance of any powers conferred by the Sanitary Acts, the Public Works Loan Commissioners may reduce the interest payable thereon to the rate of not less than three and a half per centum per annum.
Joint boards and port sanitary authorities under this Act, and the local board of health of any main sewerage district and any joint sewerage board constituted under any of the Sanitary Acts and existing at the time of the passing of this Act shall, for the purposes of their constitution, have like powers of borrowing on the credit of any fund or rate applicable by them to purposes of this Act or on the credit of sewage land and plant as are by this Act conferred on local authorities, and in the exercise of those powers shall be subject to the like restrictions ; and the Public Works Loan Commissioners may make any loan to any of the above-mentioned authorities which they may make to a local authority under this Act.