This post was written by Katherine Campbell and Siobhan Hayes. We previously posted a short guide to the new commercial rent arrears recovery procedures (‘CRAR’). As CRAR comes into force on 6 April 2014, we wanted to pick out a key issue in how the timing will work. Under the final version of the regulations, it … Continue Reading
This post was also written by Emma Flacks. Judgment in the Court of Appeal case of Pillar Denton v Game Retail– about rent due during the administration of Game was handed down yesterday. It is a landmark ruling for administrators, on the thorny issue of the payment of rent during the period of the tenant’s … Continue Reading
This post was written by Katherine Campbell and Siobhan Hayes Many landlords have used the ancient remedy of distress to apply effective pressure on their tenants to pay their rent in a timely fashion. The threat of the bailiffs at the door often persuades a tenant to pay what is due but that remedy is going … Continue Reading
This post was written by Katherine Campbell. Some positive news for landlords this week: The court has confirmed that, even where an outdated property stands little or no chance of being re-let following a tenant’s departure, a claim for the loss in reversionary value caused by the breach of the tenant’s repairing covenants is still … Continue Reading
The recent trend in Court decisions on conditional break clauses has been in favour of landlords but we have just seen a significant case decided in favour of tenants so that after successfully exercising a conditional break Marks and Spencer (the tenant) were entitled to a refund of the proportion of the rent (paid in … Continue Reading
This post was written by Katherine Campbell and Siobhan Hayes. Do tenants who want to exercise a break part way through a quarter have to pay the whole quarter’s rent on the quarter day in order to validly exercise the break? You will know from our previous posting that there have been two cases in … Continue Reading
This post was written by Katherine Campbell and Siobhan Hayes. Most landlords are reasonably familiar with the rules set out in O’May v City of London Real Property Co Limited. As a result of that case, a landlord cannot introduce changes to lease terms on a renewal where the effect of the change is to … Continue Reading
Break clauses are currently one of the hot topics in real estate litigation. This is unsurprising given the state of the market. A High Court case reported this week shows how difficult it can be for tenants to operate a conditional break clause in a lease. In this case, the lease contained a condition that … Continue Reading
A High Court case reported this week shows how difficult it can be for tenants to operate a conditional break clause in a lease. On the face of it, this looks like a good decision for landlords. In this case, around £130 of default rate interest was overdue at the break date. The lease was … Continue Reading
We have posted previously on the difficulties of operating break clauses effectively . Today the Court of Appeal (in a case where we were acting for the landlord) has considered the meaning of a break clause which was conditional on the tenant delivering up with vacant possession.… Continue Reading
This January saw yet another case on break notices reminding all of us how careful both landlords and tenants need to be when leases are being brought to an end. In this case the landlord’s managing agents will be wishing that they had said less.… Continue Reading
In January we posted on the impact of a case that ruled that landlords are able to claim rent as an expense of the administration when a tenant’s administrators are in occupation of all or part of a leasehold property. In another win for a landlord, the Court ruled that rent can be claimed as … Continue Reading
The ability of landlords to recover the costs of taking action against tenants for dilapidations or indeed any breach of covenant can be fraught. Far from being an automatic entitlement, it will depend upon the wording of the lease. Costs clauses in leases are many and varied – some rather better than others.… Continue Reading
This post was also written by Clare Whitaker. A decision by the High Court in December has strengthened the position of landlords who sometimes do not get paid during the administration even where the administrator is running the business from the property.… Continue Reading
This week we have seen the headlines about the Focus DIY Corporate Voluntary Arrangement (CVA). It is reported that landlords have accepted the CVA and that will enable Focus to continue a significant part of the business and to retain a large number of jobs. Welcome news in many respects. CVAs can have a significant impact on … Continue Reading
Many landlords use an old remedy to recover unpaid rent from sub-tenants where tenants have gone into default. This is set out in Section 6 of the Law of Distress Amendment Act 1908. The remedy pre-dates the rescue culture intended by administration by nearly a century. Given the increasing number of tenant companies in administration, … Continue Reading
Tenants exercising break clauses in their leases are creating plenty of work in the property disputes field at the moment. Many tenants who have the opportunity to break the term of their lease are seizing it, and landlords in return want to find any way possible to challenge the validity of those notices. This posting identifies some of the topics arising on lease breaks.… Continue Reading