So… you’re entering into a new Lease of commercial premises and you’ve decided not to instruct a solicitor. After all, it’s an additional cost which your business could do without and what’s the worst that could happen?

When a company is dissolved any assets owned by the company at the date of dissolution automatically pass to the Crown.

S Frances Ltd v The Cavendish Hotel (London) Ltd (2018).

As you may know, dilapidations is a term used to refer to damages or defects to a property which a tenant is generally legally obliged to put right at the end of their lease. Depending on the terms of the lease, where dilapidations do occur, it is likely that the tenant has breached various agreements, the most obvious being the repairing covenant.

If you are thinking of entering into a short-term lease of premises for a term of 7 years or less and the lease grants you rights over your landlord’s property or adjoining land, then you should ensure that these rights are properly protected by registration at the Land Registry.

Due to the increasing demand for short-term lettings of private apartments and homes, more property owners are now turning to sites like Airbnb to rent out their properties in return for some extra cash. Property owners should be cautious before renting out properties on such sites as this type of short-term letting may put you in breach of covenants which restrict the use of your premises.

As a Commercial Tenant taking lease of a business premises, you may be asked upon signing, by your landlord, to 'contract out' of your security of tenure. In this blog our Commercial Property team will discuss the basics of what a security of tenure is and what it means for you.

The recent case of Goldman Sachs International v Procession House Trustee Ltd [2018] illustrates the difficulties that the parties to a lease may have when exercising a break option. In this case the tenant, Goldman Sachs, occupied office premises under a 25 year lease at a rent of £4 million per year. The terms of the lease provided that a break option would be exercisable by the tenant after 20 years subject to there being no rent arrears and “subject to the tenant being able to yield up the premises with vacant possession”.