The Regulatory Reform
(Business Tenancies) (England and Wales) Order 2003
came into force on 1st June 2004. This introduced a number of changes to the
Landlord and Tenant Act 1954 though the change that attracted most attention
was the fact that it is no longer
necessary to obtain an Order of the Court before creating a lease which does
not carry the protection of sections 24-28 of the Landlord and Tenant Act
1954. In order to grant a lease on or after 1st June 2004 that does
not confer security of tenure on the tenant you need to
-
Serve a notice in the prescribed form or
substantially in that form
-
Comply with the requirements set out in
schedule 2
The requirements are
-
The notice must be served on the tenant not
less than 14 days before the lease is entered into or, if earlier, not less
than 14 days before the tenant is contractually bound. It therefore follows
that any existing practice you may have of entering into an agreement for
lease with completion being conditional upon getting the consent order will
no longer work. You will have to give 14 days notice before the agreement
for lease is entered into. This may defeat the whole point of having an
agreement for lease if you were using it as a device to get the tenant early
access pending the consent order
-
Provided that the 14 days notice is given
before the tenancy is entered into (or before the tenant is contractually
bound to do so) the tenant or someone on the tenants behalf must make a simple declaration (not a
statutory declaration) in a prescribed form or substantially in that form
-
If 14 days notice is not given then the
tenant must swear a statutory declaration (as opposed to the simple
declaration) in a prescribed form or substantially in that form. This will
need to be done before the lease is entered into or before the tenant is
contractually bound to do so.
-
A reference to the notice and either the
simple declaration or the statutory declaration needs to be contained in or
endorsed on the lease. As a matter of good practice it may be prudent to
bind a copy of the notice and the declaration in the lease so that it cannot
become lost.
-
A clause dealing with the agreement to
exclude also needs to be contained in or endorsed on the lease
Turning now to an agreement to surrender a
lease which carries security of tenure the procedure is just the same. A
similar notice has to be given before the tenant is committed to agreement to
the surrender – the tenant needs to make either a simple or statutory
declaration dependent on whether or not the appropriate 14 notice period has
been given
Our package of documents to be downloaded
contains the following -
1.
Notice to be served prior to lease or commitment to lease being entered
into
2.
Simple lease declaration
3.
Statutory lease declaration
4.
Clause to be included in lease
5.
Notice to be served prior to agreement for surrender
6.
Simple surrender declaration
7.
Statutory surrender declaration
| Click to purchase the package of
documents - £20 |
|
The
documents will download as a Zip file. Once downloaded it will unzip to a Word
document. You will need WinZip to unzip the document - click the WinZip
button at the side of this page
The
documents available on this site have been prepared for use in England &
Wales. They may not be valid if used in other areas.
