It is common that landlords of commercial leases require a guarantor of the terms of the tenancy. The purpose of a guarantor is to provide to the landlord some security in the event that the tenant defaults on an obligation under the lease, such as a failure to pay rent or service charges or a breach of other covenants such as to reinstate the premises. Depending on the nature of the guarantee the landlord may have the right to bring a claim for damages against the guarantor immediately upon the happening of a breach; after the happening of a defined event, such as a failure to pay rent or after a demand has not been satisfied; or after claims

Opposed lease renewal If a landlord opposes the grant of a new tenancy based on ground (f) in section 30(1) of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1954 (LTA 1954), the landlord must demonstrate that it has an intention to demolish or reconstruct the premises or a substantial part of them, or carry out any substantial works of construction on the premises or part of them and he could not reasonably carry out these works without possession of the premises. See Practice Notes: Grounds of opposition: ground (f)—demolition, construction, reconstruction and substantial works. One of the elements required to satisfy ground (f) is that the landlord must demonstrate an intention to carry out the reconstruction or demolition works. Pursuing a dilapidations claim against the tenant may be seen as being contrary to having such an intention. Dilapidations claim If the lease is close to expiry, any dilapidations

Section 8(1) and 8(2) of the Housing Act 1988 (HA 1988) provide: '(1) The court shall not entertain proceedings for possession of a dwelling-house let on an assured tenancy unless— (a) the landlord…has served on the tenant a notice in accordance with this section and the proceedings are begun within the time limits stated in the notice in accordance with subsections (3) to (4B) below; or (b) the court considers it just and equitable to dispense with the requirement of such a notice. (2) The court shall not make an order for possession on any of the grounds in Schedule 2 to this Act unless that ground and particulars of it are specified in the notice under this section; but the grounds specified in such a notice may be altered or added to with the leave of the court.' A

Although Part 2 of the Housing Act 2004 (HA 2004) defines various types of houses in multiple occupation (HMOs), the most commonly encountered situation is where a building consists of more than one unit of living accommodation which: • are not self-contained flats • is occupied by persons as their only or main residence, but not as a single household, and • two or more households share one or more basic amenities, by which is meant a toilet, personal washing facilities or cooking facilities Such accommodation requires a licence under HA 2004 and it is assumed for the purposes of this question that this has happened. It will readily be seen therefore that where a landlord has a property and grants tenancies of individual rooms

Service of s 5 notices There is no existing caselaw that establishes how many s 5 notices the landlord must serve on qualifying tenants in circumstances where the landlord is disposing of the freehold and leasehold interest together. The Landlord and Tenant Act 1987 (LTA 1987) is not clear on the point either. The LTA 1987, s 1 provides: A landlord shall not make a relevant disposal affecting any premises to which at the time of the disposal this Part applies unless— (a) he has in accordance with section 5 previously served a notice under that section with respect to the disposal on the

Landowners cannot usually require water undertakers to carry out repairs to a private water main that runs through land owned by a third party. The relevant water undertaker is typically responsible for maintaining and repairing the public water supply mains and infrastructure, but not private water mains on private property. The responsibility for maintaining and repairing private water mains generally falls on the owner of the property

It is not immediately clear why a landowner might be prepared to enter into a public path creation agreement to create a new footpath or bridleway but would choose to reserve to itself the responsibility to continue maintaining that footpath or bridleway. It seems unlikely that any landowner would choose to do this. In any event, it appears that by virtue of section 36(2)(d) of the Highways Act 1980 (HiA 1980),

The siting, maintenance and other obligations relating to telecommunications masts are governed by the Telecommunications Act 1984 and the Telecommunications Code which is promulgated under the Act. Telecoms operators can require a grant of consent to place equipment on the property of a landowner, and, if consent is refused, can obtain an order compelling the grant of consent. Once consent has been granted the operator has a statutory right to leave its equipment upon the land. This is the case regardless of whether any lease granted as part of the permission expires by effluxion of time and is excluded from

Private nuisance A private nuisance is an interference with the use or enjoyment of land that causes injury in relation to an ownership right in that land. An individual’s conduct only becomes a nuisance when their acts are not confined to their own land and extend to their neighbour’s land. To determine accountability

A 'bridleway' is a way over which the public have the following, but no other, rights of way: a right of way on foot and a right of way on horseback or leading a horse, with or without a right to drive animals of any description along the way: see section 192(1) of the Road Traffic Act 1988 (RTA 1988). In relation to pedestrian use, therefore, the owner of the affected dwelling could rely simply on the public right of way constituted by the bridleway. However, there is no reason why the owner of the land over which the bridleway exists should not also grant a private right of way in favour of a particularly dominant tenement. As regards vehicular use of the bridleway, it should be noted that it is an offence, pursuant to RTA 1988, s 34 to drive a mechanically propelled vehicle onto or upon any road being a footpath, bridleway or restricted byway, without lawful

The Electronic Communications Code provides that a right to require the removal of telecoms equipment (such as base stations or masts) cannot be enforced without going through Code procedures. The owner of land occupied by telecoms equipment must serve a notice requiring its removal, relocation or alteration. If the telecoms operator serves a counter-notice in accordance with the Code then the landowner must go to court to seek an order requiring the telecoms operator to carry out the required works. See Practice Note: Previous Electronic Communications Code [Archived]. Where no agreement,

This Q&A relates to the transfer of part of land in two titles from the landowner to himself in order to create a third title. In HM Land Registry terms this does not constitute a transfer as there is no change of title but rather the registered owner requires the opening of a new folio for part of his registered land, separate from the rest but not involving a change of ownership. Rule 3 of the Land Registration Rule 2003 (LRR 2003), SI 2003/1417 states: ‘(3)