LAW2022 Online: Commercial Property (Autumn)

Presented by Richard Snape

The course aims to look at some of the issues involved in this important area. Topics covered include:

• Repair as opposed to renewal and inherent defects
• Service charge liability including recent case law
• Some ancillary issues relating to break clauses and rent review
• Damages claims and S.18 Landlord and Tenant Act 1927

Presented by Richard Snape

These covenants are a staple for commercial property professionals but present various pitfalls. The course aims to look at some of the problems and solutions.

Topics covered include:

• Obtaining the licence
• Reasonableness of refusal of consent to alienation
• Time for giving consent and S.1 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1988
• User covenants and keep open clauses
• Alteration and improvements: questioning refusal of consent
• Planning permission changes in England and their impact on alienation and user covenants

Presented by Mark Shelton – Commercial Property Management Law Trainer

Security for payment of rent by a tenant underpins not only the landlord’s return on its investment, but also the valuation of the asset.

Guarantees, whether from a parent company or a director and shareholder, have come to appear increasingly vulnerable in the light of legal developments over recent years. The benefit of a guarantee can be lost through successive assignments of the lease, or by variation of the lease. Guarantees may be set aside for undue influence. Insolvency procedures have been used to restructure lease commitments, and effectively relieve parent companies of the burden of guarantees at precisely the point where the landlord expected to be able to call on them.

This does not mean that guarantees are no longer required, but landlords will increasingly be interested in other available forms of security, principally rent deposits. But a rent deposit raises its own set of issues surrounding financial compliance requirements, effective registration, the impact of insolvency, and procedures upon assignment. This webinar surveys the different types of available security.

Presented by Mark Shelton – Commercial Property Management Law Trainer

While a vacant property may present an opportunity for repair, upgrades, statutory compliance work and perhaps re-purposing to accommodate change of use, it is more often the case that it presents a range of problems and issues. Is there any way of avoiding or reducing liability for business rates? How can the risk of break-ins and malicious damage be addressed?

Property guardians present a possible answer to some of the issues, but how effective a solution is this? Developing caselaw provides some answers.

Now that the government is legislating to introduce rental auctions in relation to vacant high street properties, a number of questions leap to mind. If a landlord intends to redevelop a property, will this exclude it from the scope of the scheme? If there is only one bidder, will the landlord be required to grant a lease at whatever rent the individual bidder is prepared to pay? How will service charges be dealt with? Would a landlord be permitted to favour a bidder that can produce a guarantor over one that cannot? Could a landlord choose to grant a lease to a bidder that is prepared to take a longer lease, but at a lower rent?

Now that the much of the detail of the proposals is known, consideration can be given to these issues, and how to respond.