the Private Streets Works Act 1892 counted as improvements. Their net cost were included in the calculation of rent increases. Repairing liabilities in short leases The effect of the neglect of repairing liabilities during and after the Second World War faced many tenants on short leases with huge bills for dilapidations to make good dwellings which had been originally let in a poor state of repair. Such tenants did not at that time have sufficient security of tenure to enable them to reap the benefit from carrying out major repairs. Under the Housing Act 1961 (see particularly sections 32 and 33) where a tenancy of a dwelling house for less than seven years was granted after 24 October 1961, the landlord was required by an implied covenant to keep in repair the structure and interior (including drains, gutters and external pipes) and to keep in repair and proper working order the installations in the house for the supply of water, gas and electricity, for sanitation, and for space heating and heating water. This applied whatever the rent or the rateable value. The Act included a provision to prohibit the backdating of a lease. The term of years counted from the date of lease signing. The 1961 Act increased the percentage addition to the rent for the net cost of improvement works carried out after 24 November 1961, from eight per cent (as it had been in the Rent Act 1957) to twelve and one half per cent. Weekly rent books The Landlord and Tenant Act 1962 required landlords to provide rent books for tenancies when rent was payable weekly (except where board represented a substantial part of the rent). This Act had a more general application than the 1938 Act, and consolidated certain requirements from the 1933 Act and the 1957 Act. Information to include was prescribed, and the tenant was given the right to obtain information, particularly when the landlord was a company. The penalty for an offence was a fine not exceeding £50 (or £100 for a second conviction). The Housing Act 1964 set up the Housing Corporation to assist housing associations to provide housing accommodation in England, Wales and Scotland. It authorised the Scottish Special Housing Association to act on behalf of the Housing Corporation in Scotland. Standard amenities and grants The 1964 Act conferred on local authorities the duty to compel the improvement of dwellings that