Housing (Scotland) Act 1987

158 Appeal against making of, or failure to revoke, order under s. 157

(1) A person on whom a copy of an order is served under section 157(4), and any other person who is a lessee of the house, may, within 14 days from the latest date by which copies of the order are required to be served, appeal to the sheriff on the ground that the making of the order was unnecessary.

(2) On an appeal under subsection (1) the sheriff shall take into account the state of the house at the time when the local authority under section 157 served notice of their intention to make the order, as well as at the time of the making of the order, and shall disregard any improvement in the state of the house between those times unless the sheriff is satisfied that effective steps have been taken to ensure that the house will in future be kept in a satisfactory state.

(3) If the sheriff allows the appeal, he shall revoke the order, but without prejudice to its operation prior to the revocation and without prejudice to the making of a further order.

(4) If a local authority—

(a) refuse an application for the revocation of an order under section 157(5), or

(b) do not within 42 days from the making of the application, or within such further period as the applicant may in writing allow, notify the applicant of their decision on the application,

the applicant may appeal to the sheriff and the sheriff, if of the opinion that there has been a substantial change in the circumstances since the making of the order, and that it is in other respects just to do so, may revoke the order.