Landlord's or anyone with experience of Leasing without security of tenure.

[Deleted member 5505]

As per the title;
My wife has been offered a new lease schedule by the landlord for her studio space, however they have included an additional declaration which excludes our section 24 & 28 provisions.
All her previous lease agreements did not include this waiver declaration.

Should we be concerned ? Anyone have any experience of this before I ask legal advice. Thanks

Kind regards
Andy

 

[Martywolfman]

I had this in my lease for the small business premises I was in for 3 and a half years ending a couple of years ago, by my choice. These exclusions were part of the lease right from the start, and it definitely gave me reservations when i first took on the premises.
However, there was never an issue renewing the lease for me, they were always keen to do so - Finding a new tenant will always take time and losing a couple of months rent of course is really not something they want to do.
I really don't know what the legal standing is without these exclusions, but my suspicion was always that it just made it easier for them to get rid of me if I didn't want to agree to any rent rises they wished to impose.
I had to gently argue with them a couple of times during my lease renewals when the increases were above inflation, and negotiate them down to a raise in line with whatever inflation was at the time, but like i said, losing a months rest would cancel out at least a years worth of increases so they never fought too hard about it.

 

[Deleted member 5505]

Cheers @Martywolfman

 

[paulg100]

Had a viewing on a property to buy earlier this week, until i found out about the rates timebomb next april. Due to the amount the property prices have increased over the past 5 years, there must be tons of existing places qualifying for rates relief that will go into likely 0% rates relief as of next april.

Hopefully the landlord wont be passing that onto you also!

If you werent aware of it then may be worth checking out with the landlord ahead of time.

 

[Deleted member 5505]

Thanks @paulg100 I’ll raise the question as this was covered in an email but may have been based on current rates.

 

[DRD]

@Crewey

I own low value commercial buildings and know about this. Bottom line is that you never, ever want to go anywhere near a court as the costs go turbo and potentially out of all proportion to the sums involved.

With commercial property the default position in law is that the tenant has a continuing right to occupy provided they pay the going rate. If the parties cannot agree the going rate I believe that the courts ultimately decide it.

From a landlord's perspective the problem with this is that they cannot evict tenants if they want to do something else with the building. ie the tenant is abusive, or is polluting the local environment with fires/ leaving transit van engines outside, upsets neighbours etc

Evictions and enforcements are horrible, expensive processes so from a landlord's perspective the easiest way to remove a problem tenant is by the lease expiring. But with security of tenure there is no expiry date.

The landlord can override security of tenure if circumstances meet a very high threshold ie the building is to be fundamentally redeveloped and this can't be done with the tenant in situ. Or if the landlord wants to re-occupy the building themselves.

To exclude security of tenure the tenant must be informed about this via a formal notice and declare that they understand the consequences. You either have a 2 week cooling off period between issuing the notice and signing a declaration. Or the timetable can be compressed if the tenant signs a stat declaration in the presence of a solicitor.

Business rates fall on the occupier. Maintenance can fall on the owner or the occupier, depending on what is agreed.

 

[Deleted member 5505]

Thanks @DRD appreciated