The Practical Lawyer

If T has a periodic tenancy (whether implied or expressly granted) then it will be important for L to know how much notice has to be given to T to bring the tenancy to an end.  

Suppose a lease is contracted out of LTA 1954 (ie T has no security of tenure). If T remains in occupation then status can be any one of the following four: 

Are you entirely sure that you know what a concurrent lease is? This note (from Forsters) looks at a real-world example:  

’Redevelopment’ is one of the grounds on which L can oppose T being granted a renewal tenancy under LTA 1954. Under s30(1)(f) L can oppose renewal if L:

A new pre-action protocol will apply to debt proceedings against individuals (including sole traders) from 1 October 2017. In practice, this will make it more time consuming for Ls to recover rent arrears owed by individual Ts.

If a business T remains in occupation at the end of its contractual tenancy, then it will have a statutory ‘continuation’ tenancy under s24 LTA 1954. This is a common law tenancy on the same terms as the previous tenancy, but with the right to apply to the court for a renewal tenancy.

A recent case involved a surrender of a lease and sub-lease. But, L had charged his freehold and the consent of L’s mortgagee was not obtained. The end result was that the surrender was ineffective. Thus, T (and its guarantor) remained liable.

This is a perennial question: how do you tell a lease from a licence? The starting point is to say that no factors are conclusive but:

Factors indicating a lease:

AppearHere is an online market place linking Ls who have available temporary space with potential occupiers (in essence, Airbnb, but for retail space). All L needs to do is fill in a form online to list available space, and then enter into a licence agreement (provided by AppearHere) if a suitable occupier is found.

L may want to carry out works to other parts of the building, but yet find that T complains that the disturbance is a breach of T’s entitlement to ‘quiet enjoyment’.