‘The law of enfranchisement is very complicated. A whole industry has evolved to try to interpret the provisions of the Leasehold Reform Act 1967 (“the 1967 Act”) and the Leasehold Reform Housing and Urban Development Act 1993 (“the 1993 Act”) and put them into practice. The cost and frustration to leaseholders of such a convoluted process is considerable.’
Tanfield Chambers, 3rd December 2015
Source: www.tanfieldchambers.co.uk
‘Most landlord and tenant disputes end up in court. From the perspective of landlords, this can be a lengthy, frustrating, and costly process. For tenants, the experience is often uncertain, draining, and also costly. Is there a place for arbitration in this?’
Tanfield Chambers, 30th November 2015
Source: www.tanfieldchambers.co.uk
‘While many practitioners are familiar with the general workings of lease renewals under the ’54 Act, there is one aspect of the law that is often overlooked: interim rent under sections 24A to D. Andy Creer takes a look at the law.’
Hardwicke Chambers, 20th November 2015
Source: www.hardwicke.co.uk
‘Leasehold disputes, like any litigation, are capable of generating significant legal and other professional costs. The position is generally better for freeholders/third party managers than it is for leaseholders in that a well-drafted lease will usually give the landlord/manager a right to recover legal costs, often through a variety of different forms of covenant. These clauses can (and do) “trump” any procedural restrictions on the award of costs, see, e.g. Chaplair, but, of course, it is always a question of construction as to what the clause in question covers.’
Nearly Legal, 5th December 2015
Source: www.nearlylegal.co.uk
‘A term would only be implied into a detailed commercial contract if its implication were necessary to give business efficacy to the contract or so obvious that went without saying.’
WLR Daily, 2nd December 2015
Source: www.iclr.co.uk
‘There have been plenty of Upper Tribunal decisions on RTM (we covered the UT decision in this case with six others back in December 2013 – our note here, where your correspondent would like it noted that he suggested that there was “plenty for the Court of Appeal to tuck into”), but there has only been one previous excursion into this area by the Court of Appeal. That case, Gala Unity Ltd v Ariadne Road RTM Co Ltd [ 2012 ]] EWCA Civ 1372 (our note), is quite the predecessor to Ninety Broomfield Road in that both cases concerned more than one block of flats seeking to exercise the right to manage together. And quite the oddity, too. The Court of Appeal in Ninety Broomfield Road has restored some sense to the application of RTM in multiple block cases. It is also plainly right (a seal of approval that will doubtless cheer the hearts of the Court of Appeal judges involved).’
Nearly Legal, 29th October 2015
Source: www.nearlylegal.co.uk
‘In a consultation opening today we look at what can be done to protect owners of retirement flats and their families from unexpected charges hidden in leases.’
Law Commission, 29th October 2015
Source: www.lawcom.gov.uk
‘An “offensive” coffee shop sign has found itself at the centre of a legal row in London.’
Independent, 22nd October 2015
Source: www.independent.co.uk
‘Banksy has been described as a pseudonymous graffiti artist, political activist, film director, and painter. In The Creative Foundation v Dreamland Leisure Ltd & Others [2015] EWHC 2556 (Ch) Mr Justice Arnold had to decide the ownership of a mural known as “Art Buff” attributed to Banksy and spray-painted overnight in September 2014 onto an external flank wall of an amusement arcade (”the building”) in Folkestone owned by Stonefield Estates Ltd (“Stonefield”). The ingenuous arguments advanced on behalf Dreamland in support of its claim to be the owner of the mural are arguably at least as imaginative as the mural. The judgment addresses a novel point.’
New Square Chambers, 30th September 2015
Source: www.newsquarechambers.co.uk
‘With the recent publication of the 2015-2016 editions of the Blackstone’s Statutes series, we asked some of the authors to select a piece of legislation from the series that has the most impact on their subject area.’
Full story
OUP Blog, 28th September 2015
Source: www.oupblog.com
‘Any part of demised premises which has been justifiably removed from the premises by a tenant in accordance with the tenant’s obligation to repair the premises, and which becomes a chattel having substantial value, vests in the landlord.’
WLR Daily, 11th September 2015
Source: www.iclr.co.uk
‘In Freifeld v West Kensington Court Limited [2015] EWCA Civ 806, long-lessees had deliberately granted a future sub-lease of a commercial unit to a Chinese restaurant in breach of their alienation covenant not to sublet without landlord’s consent. An initial application for relief from forfeiture failed, because the tenants had wilfully breached their alienation covenant, and because there was an extensive history of neglectful management by the tenants of their obligations under the headlease. The judge concluded that the relationship between the tenants and their landlord had become dysfunctional and that it should not be re-imposed on the landlord by the grant of relief to the tenants.’
Full story
Tanfield Chambers, 21st August 2015
Source: www.tanfieldchambers.co.uk
‘Joint tenancy has been the only means of ownership of property at law since the Law of Property Act 1925 relegated tenancy in common to equitable ownership only. Despite the 90 years which have elapsed, joint ownership as it impacts on day to day management of residential leasehold property is not always understood. It is not uncommon, on an enfranchisement of a terraced house converted into two flats, for the freehold to be acquired by the two lessees jointly. What then? Must both decide on service charge expenditure together? What happens if one of the two refuses to join in, can the other sue? What if one of the two breaches their lease as leaseholder? These are issues which have often arisen in cases I have dealt with. The answers lie in an analysis of the trust law implications of joint ownership.’
Tanfield Chambers, 18th August 2015
Source: www.tanfieldchambers.co.uk
‘Gateway (Leeds) Management Ltd v (1) Naghash (2) Shamsizadeh [2015] UKUT 333 (LC). If a head leaseholder, or managing company passes on as a service charge, rent charged by a freeholder for property in order to provide services, does this amount to a variable service charge for the purposes of s.18 Landlord and Tenant Act 1985, and so only payable if the rent costs were reasonably incurred and if the services or works to which they relate were of a reasonable standard?’
Nearly Legal, 8th August 2015
Source: www.nearlylegal.co.uk
Woolway (Valuation Officer) v Mazars LLP [2015] UKSC 53; [2015] WLR (D) 353
‘Where a business’s offices were on two separate floors of an office block, the communication between the two being solely by way of the block’s communal lift, those two floors comprised two separate hereditaments for the purposes of non-domestic rating.’
WLR Daily, 29th July 2015
Source: www.iclr.co.uk
If a head leaseholder, or managing company passes on as a service charge, rent charged by a freeholder for property in order to provide services, does this amount to a variable service charge for the purposes of s.18 Landlord and Tenant Act 1985, and so only payable if the rent costs were reasonably incurred and if the services or works to which they relate were of a reasonable standard?
Nearly Legal, 9th August 2015
Source: www.nearlylegal.co.uk
‘A tenant who “wilfully” breached the conditions of his lease by sub-letting to an obnoxious sub-tenant without the consent of the ultimate landlord should not be forced to forfeit the lease immediately, the Court of Appeal has ruled.’
Full story
OUT-LAW.com, 5th August 2015
Source: www.out-law.com
‘In this case, the Supreme Court considered to what extent lessees could escape what appeared to be a very bad bargain indeed. The crux of the case was: to what extent can commercial common sense defeat a contractual provision which defies it?”
Hardwicke Chambers, 24th July 2015
Source: www.hardwicke.co.uk
‘Tenants of a holiday park will ultimately be obliged to pay over £1m a year per chalet, after the Supreme Court endorsed leases in which the service charge increases by 10% a year – regardless of the actual costs of providing those services.
Henderson Chambers, 16th June 2015
Source: www.hendersonchambers.co.uk
‘As everyone knows, the court, in the case of a business lease with security of tenure, and subject to certain grounds for refusal, can order the grant of a new business for a term of up to 15 years. The new lease normally now starts from the date of the court order. However there may be a gap between the expiry of the original lease and the start of, or as the case may be, the refusal of a new lease, a gap that may be significant in the case of a hotly contested case. During this interim period, the court can order that the tenant pay an interim rent to the landlord.’
New Square Chambers, 29th July 2015
Source: www.newsquarechambers.co.uk
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