Commercial lease, court case with landlord

[Kellyjellybelly]

Need some help and advise on a pending court case between me and my commercial landlord.

 

For over 2 years I have complained of leaking roof and water damaged electrics resulting in no internal and external lights...efforts to plug the leaks have not worked, no fix on the lights also. 

After pressure is put on the landlord to rectify faults he instead looks for breaches of the lease against me resulting in issuing me a section 146 notice.

 

My question is

was he in breach of his own lease making the lease void? 

or am I still accountable for accused breaches? 

I am now faced with a huge bill from his solicitor for issuing the notice that they want to enforce even though I disagree with the breaches!

 

Is this allowed??

[stu007]

Hi 

 

Welcome to CAG please be patient as I am sure other will be along to advise

 

As this is a Commercial Lease you have not given us much information to be able to advise you.

 

When did you take your Lease out and for how long?

 

When did you start complaint to the Landlord about the Roof Leaking & the Electrical issue and do you have written evidence of this?

 

Have the above Roof Leaking & Electrical Issues been rectified to date?

 

With the Section 146 Notice was it asking you to rectify said breaches by XX/XX/XXXX or is it going down the Forfeiture route?

 

So they will be using Section 146 of Law of Property Act 1925:
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/Geo5/15-16/20/section/146#:~:text=and the lessee fails%2C within,the lessor%2C for the breach.

 

[AndyOrch]

Only the terms of the lease will confirm the points you raise.....Commercial Leases use to be referred to as " All insuring and repairing Tenancy agreements" meaning that the LL is not responsible for anything unless its stated within the TA...the duties and responsibilities of the LL.

 

Andy 

[Kellyjellybelly]

Sorry I haven’t explained much about the lease, moved in 7 years ago on a 3 year lease, signed again for 3 years then the current lease is for 3 years but I gave notice to get out the first year...which is the end of this month

Complained of the roof and light circuit problems over 2 years ago, Quick fixes were done as the roof is asbestos and a new light box fitted by LL.

 

The roof just kept leaking through the months and eventually the new light box blew.

The lease states repairs to the building is by landlord but lights are down to me...the trouble is the roof was allowing water to enter the light units. This carried on for over two years, all of this i have in emails

 

Issues were never fixed, I have an email explaining that the rent amount is reflective of the condition of premises and not viable to remedy the roof

 

The accused breaches were out of the blue and not previously discussed or mentioned! Motivated so as not to spend money on the building. 

 

I’ve gone from being the victim to culprit by way of legal bullying. 
I had to take on employment to support myself and overheads as business was failing, always made sure I paid rent and didn’t ask for help during the Covid relief for small businesses