The Practical Lawyer

Suppose you are acting for an L who is planning to grant a lease to a company. As part of your diligence you do a Companies House search to check that the company is properly registered, and the company comes back with a registration number preceded by the letters ‘BR’. Is that a problem?

When granting a commercial lease, L should ensure that T is required to comply with the advertising controls in the Town & Country Planning (Control of Advertisements) (England) Regs 2007. This is because the display of ads is subject to a consent process (outside the planning regime) which is assessed by reference to their effect on amenity and public safety.  

The new Electronic Communications Code is not yet in force but landowners who want vacant possession should act before it does come into force. Under the new code, there will be lengthy termination procedures. 

If L and T have been negotiating the terms of a new tenancy before the expiry of the fixed term, then there is a presumption that a tenancy at will arises at the end of the fixed-term tenancy. Thus, T will remain in occupation under a tenancy at will (unless the facts indicate some other arrangements).

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.