This Act may be cited as the Fair Rents Amendment Act, 1939, and shall be read together with and deemed part of the Fair Rents Act, 1936 (hereinafter referred to as the principal Act).

The principal Act is hereby revived as from the time of its expiry, and shall continue in force until the thirtieth day of September, nineteen hundred and forty, and shall then be deemed to be repealed.

Section eighteen of the Statutes Amendment Act, 1938, is hereby repealed.

Section two of the principal Act is hereby amended by repealing paragraph (c) thereof, as set out in subsection one of section three of the Fair Rents Amendment Act, 1937.

Section three of the Fair Rents Amendment Act, 1937, is hereby repealed.

Notwithstanding anything to the contrary in section three of the principal Act, that Act shall apply with respect to every dwellinghouse that forms part of a building not originally designed and constructed for the purpose of being let as two or more separate flats or apartments, whether it is let for the first time as a dwellinghouse before or after the passing of this Act:

Provided that the principal Act shall not apply with respect to any such dwellinghouse—

Where any premises that form part of any house or building are let to a tenant for residential purposes and the tenant has a right to the use, in common with any other person, of any other part of the house or building, the premises let to the tenant shall for the purposes of the principal Act be deemed to be let to him as a separate dwelling.

For the purposes of the principal Act the expression “basic rent”, in relation to any premises to which the principal Act is made applicable by any of the last three preceding sections, means—

Provided that for the purposes of subsection two of section seven of the principal Act in relation to any application to fix the fair rent of any such premises made not later than three months after the passing of this Act the basic rent of the premises shall be determined in accordance with the provisions of section five of the principal Act, as if the words “and before the passing of this Act” were omitted from paragraph (b) of subsection one of the said section five.

With respect to any such premises the provisions of subsection two of section five of the principal Act shall apply with respect only to increases in the basic rent made after the first day of August, nineteen hundred and thirty-nine, whether before or after the passing of this Act.

In the application of subsection two of section seven of the principal Act to any such premises that subsection shall be construed as if the reference therein to the rent (if any) payable as on the twenty-seventh day of November, nineteen hundred and thirty-five, were a reference to the rent (if any) payable as on the first day of January, nineteen hundred and thirty-nine.

Section thirteen of the principal Act is hereby amended by omitting from paragraph (f) of subsection one the words “to be completed by transfer within one month from the date thereof”, and also by adding to subsection one the following paragraphs:—

Section sixty-three of the Finance Act, 1937, is hereby amended by inserting in subsection one, after the words “paragraph (f)”, the words “or in paragraph (h)”; and also by inserting in the same subsection, after the words “paragraph (e)”, the words “or in paragraph (i)”.

Without limiting the general power to make regulations conferred on the Governor-General by section twenty-four of the principal Act, it is hereby declared that regulations may be made under that section for the purpose of regulating charges in respect of residential accommodation in any premises with attendance or services.

Regulations made for the purposes of this section may be of general application, or may relate to any specified part or parts of New Zealand, or to any specified class or classes of residential accommodation.