Landlord’s reserved right to approve insurer
A covenant in the lease required the lessee to insure the premises with a nominated insurer or another insurer approved by the lessor. The lessor refused to approve a responsible and reputable insurer because of his wish that all tenants insure with the same insurer (for convenience in the event of a claim by more than one tenant). The House was asked as to the ambit of the rights of the lessor under the covenant.
Held: The refusal was reasonable. The lessor had an absolute right to refuse his approval to an alternative office without giving reasons, and thus could take into account the administrative convenience to him as the lessor of a large number of properties of dealing with a single insurance office. One ‘should read reasonableness in the general sense’.
Viscount Dunedin, Lord Phillimore
[1929] AC 72
England and Wales
Citing:
Limited (obiter) – Houlder Brothers and Co Ltd v Gibbs CA 1925
The landlord owned two adjoining commercial properties. The tenant of one proposed to assign the lease to the tenant of the adjoining property. The landlord refused consent on the ground that if the assignment went ahead, it was likely that the . .
Cited by:
Mentioned – 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 . .
Cited – 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 . .
These lists may be incomplete.
Updated: 15 July 2021; Ref: scu.187993