Cases - Wallis Fashion Group Ltd v CGU Life Assurance Ltd

Record details

Name

Wallis Fashion Group Ltd v CGU Life Assurance Ltd

Date

[2000]

Citation

2 EGLR 49

Keywords

Lease renewal - alienation

Summary

The landlord sought to include a requirement that the tenant provide an AGA as a condition to consent to assignment, whereas the tenant contended the landlord should only be able to require an AGA where it was reasonable to do so. The court held in favour of the tenant. Where the lease was silent as to the landlord's right to demand an AGA, the landlord was not automatically entitled to require one when his consent was sought. The standard of reasonableness was not burdensome to the landlord since the tenant would have to show that no reasonable landlord could, in the circumstances, require it.

Neuberger J indicated that it was unattractive for a landlord to contend that he should be entitled to the benefit of a covenant which entitled him to be unreasonable. In that case, evidence tended to demonstrate that market forces demanded the type of covenant sought by the landlord and all but one of the other tenants had agreed to the form of covenant proposed by the landlord. While, in estate management terms, it was mildly more convenient for a landlord to have all leases in a given development in similar terms, in this case there was no specific evidence that the landlord would encounter any real estate management difficulties if one tenancy was in slightly different terms, and the court accordingly gave little weight to this factor.