Commercial Property

At the expiry of a contracted-out lease1relating to commercial premises, the tenant has no automatic right to remain in situ. Whereas, if the provisions have not been excluded then the tenant will be entitled to remain unless one of the parties has sought to determine the tenancy by a prescribed method. For the purposes of […]

What are Dilapidations? Dilapidations are often defined as being “items in need of repair to comply with a tenant’s obligations both to repair the property and to return the property to the landlord in accordance with the lease”. Most commercial leases will describe this as a requirement to keep the property in good repair and […]

In the recent case of Marks & Spencer Plc v BNP Paribas Securities Services Trust Co (Jersey) Ltd [2014], the Court of Appeal has just made a ruling that may leave commercial tenants feeling short-changed. The claim arose following the successful exercise by M&S of the break options in leases of an office block in […]

For many, Capital Allowance is no more than a section within the preliminary commercial property standard enquiries and, assuming that the response from the other side is as innocuous as is regularly the case, nothing further will arise. In a nutshell, Capital Allowance is a tax concession which allows businesses that own commercial property the […]

A decision has been handed down from the Court of Appeal in the case of Game Station (Jervis v Pillar Denton). The decision granted landlords Land Securities, British Land, Hammerson and Intu the right to recover rent from administrators that operated a retail business as a going concern whilst a buyer was sought despite the […]

Since the Goldacre decision in 2009, the law has been clear that the rents and service charges falling due whilst a company is in administration (and is occupying premises for the benefit of the creditors), will be treated as an expense of the administration and thus likely to be paid ahead of creditors – provided […]

Squatting in residential premises will become a criminal offence from 1 September 2012. Recent high-profile cases have brought the issue to the forefront including one property reputedly belonging to Chelsea FC owner Roman Abramovich’s ex-wife, Irina, and more recently in March squatters moved into a property worth £1.6million owned by the infamous footballer Joey Barton. […]

On 10 July 2012, the House of Commons was presented with a Private Members Bill which aims to better control the use of former independent retail stores and public houses as supermarkets. The Bill was presented by Julian Huppert (Lib Dem MP for Cambridge) and will be read by the Commons for a second time […]