Edward Peters considers recent cases about dilapidations & rights over waterways
In Sunlife Europe Properties Limited v Tiger Aspect Holdings Limited [2013] EWHC 463 (TCC), Edwards-Stuart J reviewed the legal principles governing the assessment of damages on terminal dilapidations claims.
The claim concerned substantial commercial premises in Soho Square, which had been let under 35-year leases in the mid-1970s. The leases contained comprehensive tenant’s repairing covenants, but the tenant yielded up the premises in a dilapidated state. The landlord claimed damages of £2.17m, plus interest. The tenant disputed the quantum of the claim, claiming the cost of the necessary remedial works was £700,000, but that the amount of damages recoverable was capped, by s 18(1) of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1927, at the consequent diminution in the value of the reversion. The tenant asserted the diminution was no more than £240,000, contending that, even if the premises had been put in repair, they would have required substantial refurbishment and updating.
In a lengthy judgment, Edwards-Stuart J held that the applicable legal principles were:
- The tenant was entitled to perform his covenants in the
