S.L. 499.57 Art. 23Asphalting, etc., of private roads.

(1) Without prejudice to any other action available according to law, the Agency shall be enabled to carry out or, as the case may be, to continue the carrying out of all or any of the works specified in regulations 20 and 21 after having given the owner notice by registered letter of its decision so to do; any such works shall be carried out at the expense of the person who has opened the road.

(2) Every private road, including the footway thereof, shall, on notice by registered letter given by the Authority, be asphalted or surfaced otherwise as indicated by the Authority, by the Agency, at the owner’s expense.

(3) Each of the notices mentioned in the last two preceding sub-regulations shall specify the amount payable by the owner as his share of the expense in connection with the proposed works.

(4) The Agency shall give notice by registered letter of the date of completion of the works referred to in sub-regulations (1) and

(2) to the owners, who shall effect payment, unless they have already done so, of the amount due by them without interest, within a month of the receipt of the notice of completion of the works.

(5) Every notice sent by registered post in terms of this regulation shall be deemed to have reached the addressee in the normal course of postal delivery.

(6) Private roads shall, when such roads are included in a scheme or in a local plan -

(a) on their asphalting or other surfacing; and

(b) upon the publication in the Gazette of an Order by the President to that effect, become Government property and the owners shall thereafter be relieved of any further obligation of maintaining the roads.

(7) Notwithstanding any other provision of law to the contrary, the site of every road or part of a road transferred to the Government in accordance with sub-regulation (6) shall, on the Order of the President, be freed absolutely from every privilege and hypothec theretofore affecting it, without prejudice to the entire credit secured by that privilege or hypothec continuing to be a charge on the residue of the property of which that site formed part and on all other affected properties, if any, of the debtor. Any such liberation shall not be subject to any requirement of reference or other entry in the Public Registry.

(8) (a) If the owner of the road shall fail to pay any amount due by him under and within the period specified in sub-regulation (4), he shall thereupon become liable to the payment over and above the amount so due of interest at eight per centum thereon as from the date of completion of the works to the date of payment, and the expense incurred by the Agency together with that interest thereon shall constitute a privileged claim in favour of the Agency on that owner’s property immediately abutting on the inhabited road, and such claim shall be paid in preference to all other claims, whether privileged or hypothecary on such property, notwithstanding any other provision of law to the contrary.

(b) Such right of priority may not be enforced unless the claim is registered in the Public Registry within two months from the completion of the works aforesaid. In default of evidence to the contrary the date of the completion of the works shall be deemed to be that indicated in the note for the registration of the privilege.