Commercial Property

Many leases contain clauses entitling one or both parties (but usually the tenant) to terminate them on a set date or dates. These breaks are very valuable to tenants (and correspondingly costly to landlords). Even where a tenant wants to remain in the premises after the break date it can use the threat of exercising the break to negotiate a "regear" under which it receives rent holidays or other benefits. Traditionally in Scotland these break clauses were simple and unconditional, but recently landlords' lawyers have adopted the English model of making them heavily conditional. That, combined with several alarming cases, means that break clauses are often simply incapable of exercise - leading to claims by tenants against their lawyers. In this part of the seminar Iain explains the pitfalls and how to avoid them.

In the other part of the seminar Iain will explain how surveyors operate rent reviews. Many leasing lawyers draft and revise rent review clauses frequently but know next to nothing about how surveyors value premises at review. So they have little or no idea how changes in a standard clause - or in other clauses in the lease - may affect the outcome of the review. Nor are they aware of when a standard rent review clause won't work, and what to do when it doesn't. Iain will provide invaluable insight into these fundamentally important issues.

The event begins at 2pm. Delegate registration is open from 1:30pm.