Poundland store fails in legal bid to negotiate lockdown rent reduction

A recent county court case has highlighted a trend among tenants to seek to negotiate lockdown-friendly clauses in their leases when they come up for renewal. The case involves the Twickenham branch of Poundland and landlord Toplain. The parties had been unable to agree the terms of a new five-year lease, with an annual rent of £130,000. Poundland wanted various changes, including moving from rent paid in advance to rent paid in arrears, a pandemic clause that would reduce rent by half if the store was unable to trade and a statement that the store would not need to comply with the building’s insurance requirements if there is a lockdown. All these points were justified using case law. However, the county court judge in the case was not convinced and did not agree to the changes. The case, according to surveyor Paul Jenkins of Jenkins Law, shows that “landlords can be successful in defending the tide of demands from tenants for what are, in many cases, unreasonable requests for variations to existing lease terms”. Jenkins Law worked on the case, along with legal firm KL Law. Jenkins added: “The Landlord and Tenant Act now seems to offer tenants the opportunity to bring in technical arguments to reduce rents, without due regard to what happens in the real world. “The majority of lease renewals are agreed by negotiation, and a number of recent decisions at county court are being used to trip landlords up during the lease renewal process.” Photo © Geoff Moore/Shutterstock