When serving a break notice the terms of the lease are of paramount importance. The lease itself sets out the requirements for notice, and these must be read carefully and strictly adhered to. Subject to that caveat, the following points may apply: It is crucial to identify the correct recipient of the notice. The landlords named in the lease may no longer be the correct recipients. If the break clause requires service on the 'landlord', this will usually

Where land is held by a company, there is no difficulty when directors or shareholders change. The land is held by the company which remains separate from those persons. They have no interest in the land and when a director resigns or a new one is appointed, there is no need to consider how the land is held. Where however a partnership wishes to occupy land, thought needs to be given as to how any interest in it will be held. The partnership only exists through its partners. There is no separate legal entity. Instead, it will be the individual partners who own the interest in the land. The maximum number of people to whom the legal interest in land may be conveyed is four (section 34(2) of the Law

Prohibitions against assigning etc can cover a range of situations depending on the wording. They may: • be limited to prohibiting ‘permitting’ or extend to ‘suffering’ • be a prohibition against ‘parting with possession’ (which includes assigning or subletting) or ‘sharing possession’ or • be wide enough to prohibit the ‘occupation or use of the premises by another person’, alternatively ‘sharing occupation or use with another person’ Of these, a prohibition against permitting another person or company using the premises is about as wide as it gets. Here, the word ‘use’ may be contrasted with the other word which often appears in this scenario: ‘occupation’. ‘Occupation’ is a concept (as distinguished from ‘possession’; which connotes a legal right to exclude others) which is well known to property

Nature of the occupation and method of termination Consideration needs to be given to the nature of the occupation (including the extent to which the directors are continuing to use the premises for the same business as the business of the dissolved company) in order to ascertain whether it is or was a licence, tenancy at Will or a periodic tenancy. If it was a periodic tenancy, it will be automatically protected under the Landlord and Tenant Act 1954 (LTA 1954). The method of termination will depend both on the nature of the occupation and on the impact of the dissolution of the company. For more

Where rent is payable in advance but the lease ends before the end of the period for which rent is payable, the landlord is entitled to the whole of the rent for that period (see Commentary: Apportionment in respect of time: Hill and Redman's Law of Landlord and Tenant [1807]). Where a tenant company goes into liquidation and the liquidator disclaims the lease, the rights, interests and liabilities of the tenant under the lease are terminated, as from the date of disclaimer. If the company was the original

The terms on which the landlord can forfeit will be set out in the lease. Without seeing this document, we are unable to provide a full answer specific to the circumstances of this case. Where a tenant’s breach is for a breach other than non-payment of rent, a landlord can only forfeit a lease after serving a section 146 notice under the Law of Property Act 1925 and providing the tenant a reasonable time to remedy the breach (if remediable). The landlord must also ensure that any other requirements under the lease have been satisfied. The test of whether a right to forfeit

If the landlord were to accept rent payments from the administrator, there are two main issues to consider: • what is the impact on the right of forfeiture? • will the court lift the moratorium and allow forfeiture of the lease? Forfeiture The landlord's right of forfeiture will depend on the exact terms of the lease and we assume for the purposes of this question that the landlord is entitled to forfeit the lease based on the appointment of an administrator to the tenant company. It is possible for a landlord to waive their

Where goods are left on the premises the landlord becomes an involuntary bailee of those goods. In some cases, the question of how such goods should be dealt with is provided for in the lease. Where this is not the case, the landlord’s rights and obligations are governed by the Torts (Interference with Goods) Act 1977. The

When a former tenant remains in occupation after the expiry of a lease, the question of their status may arise. Usually, where the landlord consents to the ongoing occupation, the possibilities are that the occupier is a tenant at will or a periodic tenant. The distinction is critically important because the latter attracts security under the Landlord and Tenant Act 1954 (LTA 1954) but the former does not. This subject is discussed in Practice Note: Periodic tenancies — Tenancy at will or periodic tenancy? In the absence of other relevant surrounding circumstances, the payment of rent on a periodic basis gives rise to a presumption

A tenant cannot serve a section 26 notice if it occupies under a monthly periodic tenancy. This is because a valid section 26 request can only be served in relation

Under section 37 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1954 (LTA 1954), the tenant is entitled to statutory financial compensation for the disturbance to their rights of security of tenure where: • the landlord relies on one or more 'compensation grounds’, and • one of the three compensation cases under LTA 1954, s 37(1A)–(1C) applies LTA 1954, s 38(2)–(3) provides: ‘(2) Where— (a) during the whole of

By section 24 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1954 (LTA 1954), a tenancy to which LTA 1954 applies will not come to an end unless terminated in accordance with the Act. The methods of termination permitted by LTA 1954 are