Industry comment, updates and news from the Websters team.
Richard Cressall of Gordons comments on the case where M&S broke its lease, having paid both a break penalty and the full quarter’s rent and the question the Supreme Court had to answer was whether M&S could claim a refund of the rent paid for the period after the break date.
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Samantha Bell of Gordons notes that, in a recent case, a residential tenant claimed that the disrepair to the property was causing safety issues. The tenant applied to the First-Tier Tribunal for a management order under Section 24 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1987, whereby the Court would take management of the building out of the landlord’s hands. The Tribunal criticised the landlord and found that it had failed to comply with its responsibilities…
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Dilpesh Shah of DAC Beachcroft has reported that, in a recent court decision, Fairbairn v Etal Court Maintenance Ltd (2015), it has been confirmed that landlords of residential premises cannot charge their tenants through the service charge for costs which have been incurred as a result of the landlord’s own breach.
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Dutton Gregory LLP has reported that managing residential property is a legally complex task and is not for amateurs. In one case which proved the point, benevolent landlords found themselves having to take court action after dispensing with formalities in order to save their tenants money.
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Morven Coulter of Morton Fraser notes that, after spending some time agreeing terms for new lettings, landlords want those terms documented and the tenant in and paying rent as soon as possible. They don’t welcome new points being debated or any delay caused by further discussions on commercial points that they thought were agreed.
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Websters has been specialising in the production and audit of service charge accounts for nearly forty years. When we started this work, service charge audits were frequently undertaken as part of the property owner’s general annual audit. This was not a satisfactory situation because specialist knowledge is needed for accurate service charge accounting assessment. Some of the advantages of an audit are:-
We now act for a very large number of landlords, who recognise that independently audited accounts can remove a major cause of conflict with their tenants
Commercial landlords and property agents of multi-let buildings or houses in multiple occupation (HMOs) are often facing problems when recharging tenants for energy. An article in FM World says that many buildings apportion utility costs on a floor area or fixed percentage basis but tenants are now expecting to be charged for actual usage, which can lead to potential disputes.
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Brandon Lewis of Department for Communities and Local Government has announced new measures that will clamp down on criminal landlords who trap and cram vulnerable tenants in unsafe, overcrowded homes, . Proposals will help councils tackle the problem head-on and bring an end to ruthless landlords who exploit their tenants and charge them extortionate rents to live in cramped conditions.
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Mike Suggett of Browne Jacobson has pointed out that where a tenant of a commercial property seeks to negotiate into a lease the ability to terminate the lease early, he will usually wish to secure the break right conditional only on serving notice. However, this can be unacceptable to some landlords who may insist on more onerous conditions . Some of these conditions can be complied with relatively easily, but some can be so onerous that they will allow a landlord to effectively frustrate a tenant’s right to break the lease early.
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Karl Anders of Walker Morris explains that the Court of Appeal has confirmed that deadlines for complying with conditions for relief from forfeiture are not necessarily set in stone.
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