Cases - Co-operative Wholesale Society Ltd v National Westminster Bank plc

Record details

Name

Co-operative Wholesale Society Ltd v National Westminster Bank plc

Date

(1995)

Citation

1 EGLR 97, CA

Keywords

Commercial property – landlord and tenant – rent review – review on basis of a hypothetical letting – how to calculate the rent review

Summary

This was a lead case of four, illustrating the general reluctance of the courts to find that the market rent is a headline rent.

The rent review clause, which provided for the usual basis of a hypothetical letting, contained an express assumption 'that any rent-free period or concessionary rent or any other inducement whether of a capital or revenue nature which may be offered in the case of a new letting in the open market at the relevant review date of review shall have expired or be given immediately before the relevant date of review'.

Although this appeared to create an assumption that the rent-free period took place before the grant of the hypothetical lease, one could treat it as an assumption that the hypothetical tenant had been given a rent-free period of access to the premises prior to the review date as a fitting out period.