Open up! Or else… what?

• Three recent county court decisions have reached conflicting conclusions as to whether the court can permit a landlord to force entry following breach of an access injunction.
• The latest decision, Taylor Clark Ltd v Mohamed, suggests that the court can do so, in the exercise of its discretion under CPR 70.2A, but as yet there is no higher court authority.
• The authors consider that the reasoning in Mohamed is open to question and prefer the analysis in the prior decision of Southern Housing v Emmanuel.

Suppose that a tenant refuses to allow their landlord into the property to carry out a gas safety inspection. The landlord is required by law to do so annually, and the tenancy records that the tenant shall permit access for that purpose. In an effort to comply with its own legal obligations, the landlord seeks an injunction to compel