UK Law

Real Estate Law of UK

Real Estate Law of UK

Introduction

The letting of the new property has some landlord and tenant rights associated with it, which are often neglected and considered as irrelevant. These rights only gain importance in the event of becoming a victim of either a tacky tenant or landlord. The paper strives to understand the certain aspects of landlord and tenant law by answering situations related to some of the common issues in the law.

Discussion

The various aspects of landlord and tenant law will be explained through answering four different situation of Henry, who owns the freehold of four shop premises (Numbers 1-4 Commercial Street). Henry bought these shop premises three years ago. All these premises are occupied and self-contained under separate circumstances. These separate scenarios with respective legal advices are discussed below:

Number 1 Commercial Street

This shop is occupied by Andrew, on a verbal agreement with Henry, for the purpose of bookselling business. The shop premise is not maintained properly and is in a poor state of repair. Therefore, Andrew pays a below full market rent on monthly basis. Henry wants to have the premises vacant as soon as possible by ending the agreement, but, Andrew claims that he has a right to a new lease.

An oral/verbal tenancy agreement is also a legal agreement. Verbal agreements are generally not recommended as they may contain several problems for the landlord and the tenant (Bien & Griswold, 2006, pp. 52-58). However, once a rent is accepted from a tenant, under the verbal agreement, it becomes a legal agreement. Andrew was paying rent to Henry on monthly basis, which forms a periodic tenancy from month to month.

A lease is a contract, which permits the tenant to occupy the landlord's property, by paying rent and carrying out other obligations under the lease agreement, for a fixed period of time. Andrew believes that he has a right to a new lease, which is true under Section 26 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1954 Part II. The tenant's notice under Section 26 states the initiating dates of the new tenancy, which can neither be more than a year nor less than 6 months. This notice also carries the proposed terms, by the tenant, for grant of a new lease. However, the landlord may oppose the grant of the new lease under Section 25 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1954 Part II, but there are certain grounds on which the landlord may refuse to grant a new lease. These grounds are stated in Section 30(1) of Landlord and Tenant Act 1954, which are to be duplicated in the body of the notice under Section 25. The summary of these grounds is stated below:

The tenant did not meet repairing obligations according to the verbal agreement

The tenant was insistently late in paying the due rent

There has been a considerable breach of the terms of the verbal agreement

The landlord is offering alternate location

The current agreement is a sublease of part, which restricts the landlord in ...