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25 November 2016 / John Clargo
Issue: 7724 / Categories: Features , Property
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If it ain’t broke...

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Advising on compliance with break provisions in a lease is no easy matter, says John Clargo​
  • Works can trip you up when breaking a lease.
  • Check both the wording of licences and what has actually been done.

The interplay between tenants’ rent obligations and their ability to break the term of their leases has long been a topic of considerable interest to practitioners advising either landlords or tenants. Two cases in particular will have been high on the radar in advising clients before and after the exercise of a break clause.

In PCE Investors v Cancer Research UK [2012] EWHC 884 (Ch), [2012] All ER (D) 111 (Apr) Peter Smith J. held that to exercise a break clause falling between rent payment dates A and B validly, a tenant had to have paid all the rent lawfully due on date A. They were not entitled to apportion the relevant gale of rent by paying only for the period from date A to the break date. He suggested that instead of paying the reduced

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