About this lease
This lease is for a shop with a flat over it (if in a parade) or attached to it.
The tenant could use the commercial space for any purpose including:
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conventional retail of goods
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restaurant or cafe
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provision of services such as hairdressing or estate agency
The shop may or may not have additional rooms used by the tenant for other business purposes, such as offices or storage.
If the shop is not part of a parade, the relevant paragraphs can be deleted easily and obviously.
The lease has been drawn to favour the landlord rather than the tenant. This can be rebalanced if necessary.
Provided the term of the lease is seven years or less, it does not need to be registered at the Land Registry.
Similar commercial lease agreements
We offer two similar leases for shops where the tenant does not live at the property.
Use our standard lease agreement for a shop if the unit does not share services or facilities with other neighbouring ones owned by the same landlord.
You might be interested in looking at our mixed use (retail and residential) lease if you require any additional paragraphs covering more technical points such as:
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provisions for sub-letting
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provisions for an authorised guarantee agreement
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extensive landlord's warranties
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references to land registration for leases with a term greater than 7 years
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prescribed lease clauses
Key features
Plain English is used throughout except where it is necessary to use legal terms common in this field of law.
The key features of this lease template can be summarised as:
- standard guarantor
- tenant also lives at the property
- options for transfer or assignment to another party
- sub-letting forbidden
- option to include a break clause for premature termination by the tenant
- a choice of options for rent reviews
- opt-out of Sections 24-28 of the LTA 1954
The law relating to this lease
The lease is regulated by the Landlord and Tenant Act 1954 and not the Housing Act 1988. The agreement includes an extensive menu of tenants' covenants to protect every aspect of the landlord's interest.
Account has also been taken of:
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the Landlord and Tenant (Covenants) Act 1995
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the Regulatory Reform Regulations 2003
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the Joint Committee's Code for Leasing Business Premises
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the RICS' Code on Service Charges
In balancing the codes with the law and the interest of the Landlord, we have followed the codes where reasonable, but have preferred the interest of the Landlord where there may be a difference.
Document contents
This lease agreement is comprehensive, providing alternative choices for important decisions.
The contents include 32 provisions and 3 schedules covering:
- rent: period, amount, other payments, interest on overdue rent, periodic review
- condition and repair
- tenant's positive obligations
- tenant's obligations for residential space
- service charge recovery
- restrictions on tenant: prohibited activities on the property
- signs and advertisements
- assignment of the lease
- indemnities by the tenant
- security deposit
- insurance
- access for landlord
- guarantor
- termination: default notice by landlord; provision for premature termination (a break clause)
- forfeiture
- security of tenure excluded
- Schedule 1: the service charge
- Schedule 2: rights reserved
- Schedule 3: draft agreement for a security deposit
Scottish version of this lease
The law governing commercial leases is substantially different in Scotland as compared with England, Wales and Northern Ireland. In Scotland there is no equivalent to the Landlord and Tenant Acts. There is little legislation or case law relating to leases in Scotland. So the version we have drawn for our Scottish user is common law based.
On registration of leases in Scotland, only commercial leases for longer than 20 years must be registered in the Land Register of Scotland. However, the lease is often registered in the Books of Council and Session in Edinburgh.
For the Scottish version of this document please select "Scotland" from the list in top box.
This document was written by a solicitor for Net Lawman. It complies with current English law.
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