Renewal of Business Tenancies

Publisher: Law Society Publishing

Author: Michael Haley

Price: £69.95

Edition: 2nd Edition (March 2013)

ISBN: 978-1-90769-841-5

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If you are a property litigation lawyer, it is very likely that you will cut your teeth dealing with the renewal of business tenancies.  This is not, of course, to say that the renewal of such tenancies is straight-forward; far from it.  The value of business properties, and the tenancies created in them, can often be significant not only in monetary terms but also in strategic positioning.  It is therefore fairly common for the Court to have to tackle business tenancies in contested proceedings or, at the very least, deal with proceedings which have been issued to preserve the right of occupation.  To help both property, and property dispute, lawyers comes the second edition of Renewal of Business Tenancies from Law Society Publishing.

Written by Michael Haley, a former practising solicitor and currently professor of property law at Keele University, Renewal of Business Tenancies includes ten chapters: past and present; statutory scheme; scope of the Act; landlord's section 25 notice; tenant's rights: Requesting a new tenancy and compensation; applications to court; interim rent; discretionary grounds of opposition; mandatory grounds of opposition; and new lease.  It then has an appendix which includes a number of provisions and forms and notices: Part II of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1954; Section 23 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1927; the Civil Procedure Rules 1998 and forms and notices (but not precedents).

Renewal of Business Tenancies is a well-written text explaining the important legal principles of business tenancies.  Haley, as you would expect from a professor of property law, expertly guides the reader through the various statutory provisions, case-law and thorny issues.  He makes excellent use of a table to explain applicable time limits in business lease renewals (see table 2.1) but no other tables are used.  The text could also benefit from some worked examples (there are limited examples but these are buried away in the text) to show how the various principles work in practice.  The appendices are particularly useful and group together the main statutory provisions.  It is, however, disappointing that there are no precedents (which could be cross-referenced in the text).

While Haley's Renewal of Business Tenancies is an excellent guide to the law, particularly for inexperienced property litigation practitioners, its lack of precedents is a disappointment.  There is no doubt that Haley knows this topic inside out: if you want to know the law then you will almost certainly find the answer within the covers of Renewal of Business Tenancies.  However, the lack of more tables or worked examples (particularly when discussing problematic topics like the service of notices) is a bit of a let down as the most value from a text like this is often the little gems of information which give you assurance your approach is on the right lines.  Renewal of Business Tenancies is therefore an excellent text on the mechanics of the law but a little lacking on the practical aspects: hopefully this issue can be reviewed for future editions.

Reviewed on 27 December 2013

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