Nice Try but no Cigar

Published 11 November 2014

We still find clauses in even relatively modern leases which impose an obligation on a tenant to pay the landlord's costs of serving notice, and complying with the machinery of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1954 on an application for the grant of a renewal lease. Such clauses can include the costs of negotiation as well as the actual legal costs.

Sadly s.38(1) of the 1954 Act makes any such obligation void as being a penalty and therefore unenforceable by the landlord.