The court considered a covenant in a lease not to alter the premises: ‘(1) The purpose of the [covenant] is to protect the landlord from the tenant effecting alterations and additions which damage the property interests of the landlord. (2) A landlord is not entitled to refuse consent on grounds which have nothing to do with his property interests. (3) It is for the tenant to show that the landlord has unreasonably withheld his consent to the proposals which the tenant has put forward. Implicit in that is the necessity for the tenant to make sufficiently clear what his proposals are, so that the landlord knows whether he should refuse or give consent to the alterations or additions. (4) It is not necessary for the landlord to prove that the conclusions which led him to refuse consent were justified, if they were conclusions which might be reached by a reasonable landlord in the particular circumstances. (5) It may be reasonable for the landlord to refuse consent to an alteration or addition to be made, for the purpose of converting the premises to a proposed use even if not forbidden by the lease. But whether such refusal is reasonable or unreasonable depends on all the circumstances. For example, it may be unreasonable if the proposed use was a permitted use and the intention of the tenant in acquiring the premises to use them for that purpose was known to the freeholder when the freeholder acquired the freehold. (6) While a landlord need usually only consider his own interests, there may be cases where it would be disproportionate for a landlord to refuse consent having regard to the effects on himself and on the tenant respectively. (7) Consent cannot be refused on grounds of pecuniary loss alone. The proper course for the landlord to adopt in such circumstances is to ask for a compensatory payment. (8) In each case it is a question of fact depending on all the circumstances whether the landlord, having regard to the actual reasons which impelled him to refuse consent, acted unreasonably.’
Judges:
Peter Gibson LJ, Longmore LJ
Citations:
[2004] EWCA Civ 592
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – Sargeant, and Sargeant v Macepark (Whittlebury) Limited ChD 8-Jun-2004
The landlord granted the tenant a licence to make alterations to the property, but imposed conditions on the use to be made of the resulting premises. The tenant objected.
Held: The landlord was entitled when granting consent to take into . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Landlord and Tenant
Updated: 09 May 2022; Ref: scu.199278