Legal Q&A

A tenant’s obligations A tenant is under an implied duty to use the rented premises in a tenant-like manner. In Warren v Keen, the Court of Appeal (per Denning LJ) described this as taking proper care of the home and doing the small tasks a reasonable tenant would attend to. Frequently, tenancy agreements include express terms about how the property is to be used and any duties to keep it in good repair; these express provisions supersede the implied obligation. In addition, a tenant owes a tortious duty under the doctrine of waste, meaning they must not do, or fail to do, anything that brings about a permanent alteration to the property’s nature. Removing fixtures Allowing the property to fall into decay A landlord’s remedy once the tenancy has been determined Where a tenant has failed to meet their repairing obligations, the landlord is entitled to claim damages even after the...

Forfeiture Forfeiture is the landlord’s entitlement to terminate a lease due to a tenant’s breach. A landlord can only bring the tenancy agreement to an end by forfeiture where: there is an express right within the lease; that is, the tenancy agreement includes a forfeiture clause permitting the landlord to forfeit in relation to the tenant’s alleged breach......

Where a tenant breaches a keep open clause, a landlord’s principal remedy is damages, in the ordinary course of things, rather than an injunction, specific performance, or forfeiture. Courts are ordinarily disinclined to oversee compliance with keep open clauses, since they regard compelling a tenant to meet this duty as more burdensome and expensive than any loss incurred by the landlord......

A company becomes dissolved (or treated as dissolved) after liquidation, administration, or its name being struck off the register by the Registrar of Companies. Once dissolved, the company ceases to have any existence. Upon dissolution, any assets and rights owned by, or held on trust for, the company immediately before dissolution are regarded as bona vacantia and pass to the Crown (or to the Duchy of Lancaster or the Duke of Cornwall if the company’s registered office was in Lancaster or Cornwall, respectively)......

Section 2 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1987 ( LTA 1987) Section 2 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1987 ( LTA 1987) states that a person is the landlord if they are (a) the direct landlord of the qualifying tenants of flats in the premises, or (b) where any such tenant is a statutory tenant, the person who, but for that statutory tenancy, would have the right to possession of the flat. Consequently, the relevant landlord is usually the immediate landlord of the qualifying tenants, so a transfer of a superior interest is generally outside scope. Intermediate headleases are often used to avoid the regime. However, s 2(2) LTA 1987 provides that where the immediate landlord is also a tenant of the premises under a tenancy that is either: a term under seven years, or a term exceeding seven years, but...

It turns on the presence of a fair wear and tear exclusion in the lease and, if present, the way it is interpreted and applied. In principle, a carve-out for damage arising from fair wear and tear means that the tenant is not responsible for loss resulting from normal use of the premises and the ordinary action of natural elements......

The Consumer Rights Act 2015 ( CRA 2015) The Consumer Rights Act 2015 ( CRA 2015) revised and brought together consumer protection laws with effect from 1 October 2015. Primarily, it applies to consumer agreements for providing goods, services and digital content, and overhauls the rules on unfair terms in consumer contracts. It is generally considered that a guarantor of an assured shorthold tenancy ( AST) is unlikely to qualify as a consumer of goods, services or digital content. Accordingly, any safeguard available under CRA 2015 would arise only through the unfair terms provisions in such circumstances, if applicable......

Our Q& A centres on residential leases. In the vast majority of leases for flats, there is a term permitting the landlord to re-enter and recover possession where a covenant has been breached; such provisions are the norm, particularly in the context of long leases (those exceeding 21 years). However, the indication in the question that the tenant is content for the lease to be forfeited suggests the situation concerns a short lease, namely an assured shorthold tenancy ( AST). It would be highly unusual for a long-lease holder who has paid a premium comparable to purchasing the freehold to be willing to forfeit that interest. Accordingly, this response proceeds on the footing that the tenant is an AST holder......

The tenant’s status It is common, when a commercial lease comes to an end, for the occupier to stay on without putting a fresh contract in place. Where Part II of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1954 ( LTA 1954) has been properly contracted out, that continued occupation is, at the outset, either as a tenant at will or as a tenant at sufferance. Once the landlord authorises the occupation, it can no longer amount to a tenancy at sufferance. By way of illustration, serving a notice stating that the occupation is on a tenant-at-will basis clearly constitutes consent. A tenancy at will is inherently fragile and precarious. It can be determined without any advance notice; a simple demand for possession is enough, and nothing further is required to end it by the landlord......

The Electronic Communications Code The Electronic Communications Code (the ‘ Code’), found in sections 106–119 and Schedule 3A Pt 1 to the Communications Act 2003, enables Ofcom-authorised operators to obtain rights over land for a range of purposes (see Code para 3). Code rights can be conferred by agreement between a land occupier and an operator, and, in practice, telecoms providers ordinarily seek to secure consensual terms at the outset. If agreement cannot be reached, the Upper Tribunal ( UT) has authority to confer Code rights without the occupier’s consent. The process is initiated by the operator serving a notice under paragraph 20 of the Code......

Forfeiture Forfeiture refers to a landlord’s legal power to end a lease following a tenant’s default. A landlord can lawfully bring the tenancy to a close by forfeiture only where there: exists an express contractual right in the lease itself, ie the tenancy agreement contains a forfeiture clause permitting the landlord to lawfully forfeit in relation to the tenant’s alleged breach......

Was a tenancy created with this agreement? Because the term is under three years, a lease can still indeed be valid even though it was not executed as a deed. Therefore, a tenancy could have come into being based, provided there is exclusive possession (see commentary Halsburys Laws of England, 8. Nature of grant of exclusive possession), certainty of term, and payment of rent. The tenancy might also have been protected by the Landlord and Tenant Act 1954 ( LTA 1954) on the footing that it was a fixed term lasting more than six months in duration......

Anyone seeking to acquire title to registered land by adverse possession, who cannot demonstrate 12 years’ possession before 13 October 2003, may apply once they have completed ten years in possession: para 1 of Schedule 6 to the Land Registration Act 2002 ( LRA 2002). The registrar will then serve formal notice on the registered proprietor, who can either: consent, or fail to reply at all, in which event the applicant will be entered as the registered proprietor; or serve a counter-notice opposing the application ( LRA 2002, s 73(1)) and/or require the matter to be determined accordingly under LRA 2002, Sch 6, para 5......

Serving the notice Administration of Estates Act 1925, s 1(3) states that on a person’s death the personal representatives step into the deceased’s place in relation to his real property, so far as any interest survives his death, and equally in relation to his personal property. It follows that a notice connected to that property should be directed to the deceased’s personal representative, irrespective of who holds that role, and irrespective of whether a grant of representation has yet been obtained, since the testator’s property vests in the executor from the moment of death, without any interval. Where the death is intestate, the administrator’s office is described as dative, because it arises only from the grant of administration. Accordingly, until a grant issues, the deceased’s property vests in the Public Trustee and not in the administrator, who acquires authority on the grant. Service on the...

Prior to the Sunday Trading Act 1994 ( STA 1994) Before STA 1994, trading on Sundays was unlawful, save in certain excepted circumstances, pursuant to the Shops Act 1950, which had governed such activity. That Act introduced lawful Sunday trading, but limited large premises (over 3,000 square feet, or 280 square metres) to opening for a maximum of six hours strictly between 10 am and 6 pm during that specified period. STA 1994 enables Sunday trading prospectively; however, it contains no term revoking or amending any pre-existing covenant in a lease that prohibits trading on a Sunday, and such clauses therefore continue to bind......

Section 1(1)(a) of the Housing Act 1988 ( HA 1988) Under this provision in the Act, only an individual can be the tenant of an assured tenancy. Consequently, a company letting cannot qualify as an assured shorthold tenancy ( AST). The HA 1988 also specifies categories of tenancy that are excluded from being ASTs, including business tenancies under the Act. As a result, the arrangement will then fall either as a common law tenancy—outside the HA 1988 and subject to ordinary contractual principles—or, where the relevant requirements are satisfied, as a business tenancy......

Section 214 of the Housing Act 2004 as amended Section 214 of the Housing Act 2004, as amended, allows a tenant to issue a claim against a landlord using the modified Part 8 route for monetary redress where the landlord has not safeguarded the deposit. The award must be set at between one and three times the value of the deposit. If the tenancy is ongoing, the court may direct that the deposit is lodged with a relevant scheme. Under section 9 of the Limitation Act 1980, any such claim must be started within six years from when the cause of action arose......

Where a tenant makes an encroachment onto neighbouring land owned by a third party adjacent to the demised land, the appropriation is treated as accruing to the benefit of the tenant’s landlord. In Tower Hamlets LBC v Barrett [2006] P& CR 132 (not reported by Lexis Nexis®), Neuberger LJ observed at para [26] that the doctrine is clearly articulated in these terms: in every case—whether the enclosed land is part of the waste, belongs to the landlord, or is owned by someone else—the presumption is that the tenant enclosed it for the landlord’s advantage, unless the tenant has carried out some act disclaiming the landlord’s title......

Q& A In this Q& A, the tenant is termed the immediate tenant, while the intended subtenant is called the proposed tenant. Any subtenants of the proposed tenant are described as potential subtenants. As the exact text of the lease covenants is unknown to us, we proceed on the basis that the prohibition covenant mirrors that in Nemcova v Fairfield Rents, under which the lease obliged occupants not to use the premises for any unlawful or immoral purpose, and ‘for any purpose whatsoever other than as a private residence’. We also proceed on the basis that the alienation clause includes a requirement for the immediate tenant to adhere to the provisions set out in the superior lease in full......

This Q& A explores whether a gas safety certificate is necessary before issuing a section 21 notice, in situations where the flat has no gas appliance installed at all whatsoever......