The belief of the landlord, however reasonable, that the proposed assignee intended to use the demised premises for a purpose which would give rise to a breach of the user covenant was not of itself a ground for withholding consent to assignment. Unless it could be shown that a prospective assignee would necessarily use the premises in breach of covenant it would be unreasonable for the landlord to refuse its consent to the assignment. The landlord would be able to enforce the user covenant after the assignment and therefore lost nothing by giving its consent. To base its refusal of consent simply on its belief that the assignee intended to use the premises in breach of the user covenant would therefore be unreasonable.
Judges:
Stamp LJ
Citations:
[1973] 1 WLR 658
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Cited by:
Wrongly decided – Ashworth Frazer Limited v Gloucester City Council HL 8-Nov-2001
A lease contained a covenant against assignment without the Landlord’s consent, such consent not to be unreasonably withheld. The tenant asserted, pace Killick, that the landlord could not refuse consent on the grounds that the proposed tenant might . .
Considered – Orlando Investments v Grosvenor Estate Belgravia 1989
The lease contained a tenant’s covenant to repair, and not to assign without the landlord’s consent, such consent not to be unreasonably withheld. T, himself an assignee, and therefore not liable on the covenant after assignment, sought consent from . .
Cited – Lymington Marina Ltd v MacNamara and others ChD 4-Apr-2006
The claimant marina had been constructed with financial assistance from debenture holders who in return were given low cost licences. The claimant sought to refuse to the defendant debenture holders the right to sub-licence their rights to berth . .
Binding – Ashworth Frazer Ltd v Gloucester City Council CA 3-Feb-2000
A landlord could not refuse to consent to an assignment because of a belief, even if reasonably based, that the intended use by the prospective assignee would be a breach of covenant under the lease. That did not mean that a landlord could not after . .
Cited – Lymington Marina Ltd v MacNamara and others CA 2-Mar-2007
A share in a marina had been inherited by one brother whose application to grant successive sub-lcences of it to the other two was rejected by the marina, who said that this was not permitted. The marina appealed a finding that it had to make its . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Landlord and Tenant
Updated: 13 July 2022; Ref: scu.180309
