Landlord changed locks/buisness premises

[topCatDC]

Hi any advice welcome
My friend who has a small café has had the locks changed by the land lord .
He admits owing some back rent (2 months) but was in the process of clearing the arrears .
the owner now lives in France .(his solicitor has said he knows nothink about it and basically doesn't want to)
my question is can he enter the property if he replaces the locks after-wards .
this is because all his records and some personal belongings are inside .
also there is £1500 worth of food inside that will be off and will be stinking . He Will have to declare himself bankrupt if he cannot retrieve the documents
any help would be appreciated by him
thanks in advance TC

[MrShed]

I think the short answer is that the landlord cannot do this.

To read the long answer, read the following excellent link:

Business Leases & Commercial Tenancies - LandlordZONE

[onlynameleft]

The landlord can indeed do this I'm afraid - it is called forfeiture by peaceable re entry. Where forfeiture is on the grounds of rent arrears there is no need for any notice to be given to the tenant provided there are no residential elements to the leased premises.
However, the landlord must have put a notice on the door to the premises explaining what has been done - i.e. that the lease is forfeit, and advising who an interested party should contact if access is needed to remove goods etc.
The landlord must make arrnagements to allow you to remove goods on the premises otherwise he is in breach of the Torts (Intereference with Goods) Act 1977.
Your friend would be comitting an offence if he re entered - the lease has come to an end and he no longer has a right of access. He could apply to the Court for relief from forfeiture but in order to get that relief he would first have to clear all the arrears and it is still not automatic, particularly if there is a history of late payment.
The link from Mr Shed relates to what happens at the end of a business tenancy - it does not affect the landlord's right to forfeit the lease.

[MrShed]

Not my forte this area I'm afraid - sorry if my advice was misleading and thanks for the correction!

[Ed999]

I agree with OnlyNameLeft in regard to everything he says.

A business lease can be forfeited for non-payment of rent, by peaceable re-entry, provided that no one resides (i.e. lives) on the premises and that they are unoccupied when the re-entry takes place.

This is subject to the proviso that the lease must contain a right of re-entry by the landlord in those circumstances; but in practice all modern leases do include such a clause.

Contact the landlord and cite the 1977 Act to him. He should allow you supervised access to remove your business records, or might deliver the records to you.

But if you owe him rent, he is entitled to seize and sell at auction any goods on the premises (including any business equipment, computers, photocopiers, etc), towards the money owed him. This is called distraint for rent. And it is his right if he is owed rent.

The court will always require payment of the rent arrears as a condition of granting relief from forfeiture.



Advice & opinions on this forum are offered informally, without any assumption of liability. Use your own judgment. Seek advice of a qualified and insured professional if you have any doubts.

[topCatDC]

Hi Mr Shed
thanks for trying to help it is appreciated
regards TC

[topCatDC]

Hi onlynameleft
thank you for your help i will pass this info on
TC

[topCatDC]

hi ed999
thanks for the imput regards TC

[wotnot]

Top post, I am about to let out a commercial premises and this is a real comfort (wish it applied to resi property aswell).

So if you had a downstairs retail unit with a flat above (that has no connection with the downstairs lease) then you could go in at any time, so long as there is rent arrears, and change the locks?

[demon_x_slash]

From Ed999's post, I gather that you are allowed to so long as 'no one lives on the premises'; as long as the flat upstairs can still access their property, then I should think that you were allowed to change the business' locks.

[onlynameleft]

If they are on separate leases and the flat has a separate access then you can simply change the shop locks.
However, if they are on the same lease you cannot do so even if the flat has separate access as the Court of Appeal recently held that the Protection from Eviction Act applies to mixed use premises as it does to residential. Pirabakaran v Patel if anyone is interested.

[Ed999]

Originally Posted by onlynameleft

If they are on separate leases and the flat has a separate access then you can simply change the shop locks.
However, if they are on the same lease you cannot do so even if the flat has separate access as the Court of Appeal recently held that the Protection from Eviction Act applies to mixed use premises as it does to residential. Pirabakaran v Patel if anyone is interested.

The point which everyone is skirting around is the identity of the tenant.

If the shop and flat are leased by seperate people, then clearly the landlord may use peaceable re-entry to recover possession of the shop, if there are rent arrears. It is only if the two are leased to the same person that a problem arises.

Sometimes the landlord will overcome the difficulty in a creative fashion, by leasing the shop to a Limited Company and the flat to one of the Directors of the Company.

In my previous post, I might have pointed out, additionally, that it would be unlawful for the former tenant to break in to the premises after the lease has been forfeited. He would be comitting a criminal offence of breaking-and-entering, as the premises are no longer his.

He is of course taking the benefit of the forfeiture, since the act of forfeiting has ended the lease and thus has ended the tenant's obligation to pay the rent, so no further rent arrears are accumulating.



Advice & opinions on this forum are offered informally, without any assumption of liability. Use your own judgment. Seek advice of a qualified and insured professional if you have any doubts.

[onlynameleft]

Rubbish, I suggest you read the case. If the shop and flat are on separate leases then it matters not whether they are both let to the same tenant.
The question arises because re entry of part of the demised premises is re entry of the whole demise by necessity. If there are two separate demises then the issue does not arise even if the two tenants are the same people.
If you have authority to the contrary I should be delighted to see it; the Court of Appeal had great difficulty finding any when considering the case referred to only last year.
Nobody is skirting around anything. It is simply that no one else has identified such a non issue.

[Ed999]

Originally Posted by onlynameleft

Rubbish, I suggest you read the case. If the shop and flat are on separate leases then it matters not whether they are both let to the same tenant.

Rubbish, I suggest you actually read my post, since that isn't what I said.

[onlynameleft]

Erm, yes it is.

[wotnot]

No it isnt, yes it is, no it isnt - sounds just like my children.

So Ed, you said 'peaceable re-entry', what does this mean? Let says the tenant has changed the locks and off he goes home one night. Can you force entry and change the locks because he wasnt there to stop you?