To be able to serve the “faultless” notice, a landlord must establish that the Section 21 procedure can be used, and that prescribed information has been served on the tenant. This procedure is often preferable as it is generally speedier and...
When it comes to evicting tenants, a landlord has several options, but which option a landlord will take depends on a variety of factors. The main two routes involve serving a Section 8 or 21 Notice on the tenant, but a landlord may be restricted to one...
Dawson Hart Solicitors are very pleased to announce the promotion of Lochana Gabrielsen to Director, specialising in Commercial Property. Lochana joined the firm four years ago as a Solicitor in the Commercial Property team and has been instrumental in the...
Since the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic, significant restraints have been placed on commercial landlords' abilities to recover arrears of rents from their tenants. The Government introduced emergency legislation, the Coronavirus Act...
What is security of tenure? The Landlord and Tenant Act 1954 (the Act) provides security of tenure to businesses that occupy under a lease. If the Act applies, the relevant business tenancy will not automatically come to end upon the expiry of the...
Following my first seat with the Litigation, Commercial and Personal Injury Department, I moved to the hectic Property Department in January 2019. I have found this area incredibly interesting, particularly Commercial Property, and important to my continual...
If you are in the process of selling your business, then the type of acquisition is an important decision to make. Asset Sale This involves the buyer buying sufficient assets that make up the business. This can come in the form of land, stock, IP-rights,...
There is a common misconception, amongst tenants, that the tenant is only liable to give the property back in the same condition in which it was given to them. This is rarely, if ever, the case. The most common position is that it is wholly the...
Affecting both residential and commercial properties, MEES are, as the name suggests, the minimum energy efficiency standards permitted by law, with effect from 1 April 2018. What does that mean? For many years now, where a property is being sold...
Which notice should the landlord use to evict a tenant? Both forms are used to serve notice to tenants, but they are noticeably different, and it is extremely important to serve the correct notice to avoid unnecessary delays and expenses. What is the...
A survey conducted by the Centre for Economics and Business Research has revealed that over a quarter of a million of Britain’s residential landlords are not complying with deposit protection rules and, as a result, £514m of deposits are...
We all know that many things in life, mortgages, pensions, insurance etc, are important but rarely are they considered exciting. Similarly, much of the work that property solicitors have to do could rightly be described as boring. For example, we...
In this series of articles , we have sought to demonstrate that a commercial lease has to cover many areas so as to fully record the landlord’s and tenant’s respective positions on any number of concerns that may arise during the term of the...
Part 11 – Legislation There is in existence at the present time much legislation that applies to the use and occupation of commercial buildings, of whatever nature. Undoubtedly, new legislation will be enacted in the future as well. Where...
Part 10 – Selling / Sub-letting Alienation is the formal term for the ability of the tenant to deal with the lease, whether by selling it on to a new tenant, commonly known as assignment, or by granting a sub-lease to their own sub-tenant. If...
Part 9 – Use A lease will always contain restrictions on how the tenant can use the property. Often this is linked to the planning permission applicable to the building; indeed leases usually require the tenant to comply with planning...
Part 8 – Alterations The majority of leases will severely restrict the ability of the tenant to carry out any alterations to the property. The justification for this is that the tenant only has a short-term interest in the property and the...
Part 7 – Repairs & Maintenance The most common position for the repair and maintenance of the property is that it is wholly the tenant’s responsibility. This is one of the reasons that defining the extent of the property is so...
Part 6 – Outgoings With the exception perhaps of leases within, say, an office block, a tenant can normally expect to be responsible for all the outgoings for their property, including the buildings insurance . All utilities will need to be...
Part 5 – Insurance The landlord will always want to protect the capital asset that is the building so will take out their own buildings insurance. However, it is generally expected that the tenant will pay the cost of this. The tenant will...
Part 4 – Rent The rent is often seen as the most important element of a lease because it can be the tenant’s most significant outgoing and it is the landlord’s main reason for granting a lease. Rent is usually defined by an annual...
Part 3 – Term Having a defined term is essential. This is commonly a fixed period, such as 3 or 5 years but can also be on a periodic basis, e.g. month by month. The length of the term has to be agreed between the landlord and tenant but...
Part 2 – Rights In the previous article , we spoke about the importance of the demise. However, unless the property is a complete stand-alone unit, just as important will be the rights granted to the tenant. There is no point taking a...
Part 1 – The Demise For a lease to be legally effective it must set out precisely the area given to the tenant, known as the demise. The property is often referred to as the demised premises as a result. If the demise is unclear then the...
Introduction and Overview A commercial lease is the binding contract that sets out the terms on which the owner of a property, the landlord, will allow a tenant to use it. A lease is a complex legal document and it is strongly recommended that you...
In the gloriumptious world of Roald Dahl, whose centenary is being celebrated today, gobblefunk is the name given to unique and distinctive vocabulary of the Big Friendly Giant. Full of words like jiggyraffes, splitzwiggled and figglers, it...
Property developers are canny business people who have a number of clever ways of getting hold of land. If a developer approaches you with what seems to be a good deal, step back and look at it closely. Sometimes it’s little more than the illusion of a...
Rain Rain go away! It’s been almost 14 years since the last flooding in Uckfield but the image of a boat sailing past Boots at the junction of the High Street and Bell Lane remains in many minds. In spring this year much of the country suffered from...
The current recession has brought businesses a lot of difficulty, prompted a lot of debate and spawned new buzz phrases such as: The ‘toxic lease’ where a tenant realises their obligations are going to be enforced against them. The ‘zombie...
In the buoyant commercial property market five to six years ago few tenants, or indeed their landlords, were concerned at the prospect of a full repairing lease. These are the leases where the tenant is expected to bear the cost of putting a property into...
