Default in Commercial Leases: Practical Remedies for Landlords & Tenants

Contents

Breach of lease obligations can be tricky for either party under the lease; landlords’ remedies may be restricted by commercial reality – and in particular tenant insolvency; tenants’ remedies are often less well understood, and difficult to assess. This video looks at practical methods of enforcing some of the trickier covenants for landlords and tenants facing default by the other, including:

• ‘Keep open’ covenants and tenants’ disrepair – remedies in practice
• Alienation and problems with peaceable re-entry: Gibbs v Lakeside; Zestcrest v County Hall
• Repairing obligations: specific performance, set-off – Blue Manchester v North West Ground Rents; Jervis v Harris
• Impact of insolvency on remedies: forfeiture, guarantors and rent deposits;
• Waiver & relief from forfeiture: how to avoid & what to expect

Learning Objectives

As a result of watching this video, delegates will:

• Be able to advise on the remedies available for breaching a ‘keep open’ covenant;
• Be aware of when the tenant may be able to enforce a landlord’s repairing obligation, and how;
• Understand the impact of insolvency on remedies for breach of lease covenants;
• Be aware of the problems inherent in peaceable re-entry by the landlord following tenant default

Speaker

SARAH THOMPSON-COPSEY

Sarah Thompson-Copsey is a former property litigation partner at the City law firm now known as Dentons, handling all types of commercial property problems, but with an emphasis on avoiding & resolving commercial landlord and tenant disputes. Sarah now works as a freelance lecturer, trainer and author and lectures & writes regularly on commercial property topics, as well as providing independent auditing and consulting services for law firms.

Sarah is co-author of Tenants’ Pre-emption Rights: A landlord’s guide to the Landlord and Tenant Act 1987 (Jordans) and Mixed Use and Residential Tenants’ Rights: The Landlord and Tenant Act 1987 and Leasehold Enfranchisement, (Elsevier 2009). She is also on the property consultation board of Practical Law Company and a site editor for the Property Law website at www.propertylawuk.net.