Scottish Government’s withdrawal of commercial leasing reforms creates difficulties for landlords and tenants
Holmes Mackillop’s Director in Commercial Property, Amir M Ismail, has expressed regret at the withdrawal of a Bill by the Scottish Government of commercial leasing reforms which, he says, creates difficult and unintended consequences for landlords and tenants in Scotland.
The proposed reforms principally related to termination and covered a variety of uncertainty in the law, including: automatic continuation for a year, where no Notice to Quit is served at least 40 days prior to the date of natural expiry; the standardisation of Notices to Quit; the reclaim of rent paid by a tenant attributable beyond the date of expiry; the relevance in the modern world of the Tenancy of Shops (Scotland) Act 1949; termination by a landlord following material breach of contract by a tenant; and what happens to a lease when a tenant purchases the building it possesses.
“The Scottish Law Commission (SLC) invited responses from the legal profession and other interested parties, and I was surprised at the sheer nature and extent of the differing views put forward, some of which I felt were above and beyond expectations, and were overly critical of the excellent work undertaken, to date, by the SLC in a very difficult area of law,” said Ismail, a Law Society of Scotland Accredited Specialist in commercial leasing.
“As a result, the Scottish Government recently announced that the Leases (Automatic Continuation etc) Scotland Bill will be withdrawn from this term of the parliament due to a lack of consensus.
“I can only hope that the reforms are re-ignited in the future to enable a clear consensus and fresh legislation in my working life, as the present status quo creates a lot of difficult and unintended consequences for both landlords and tenants in Scotland.”
ENDS
For further information please contact on Amir M Ismail on tel 0141 226 4942