Can You Make Alterations To Your Leased Property?

If you are a leasehold owner, you will need to gain consent from the landlord to make changes to your leased property. Permission must be requested from your landlord before work takes place. If work is carried out without permission or when consent has been refused, this is classed as a breach of your lease.

On breaching your lease your landlord could apply for a court order. This is where you are told to stop carrying out works and you have to reinstate the property. In cases like this, you may be told to cover any claims for damage to the leased property when alternations were made.

Your landlord could call on the forfeiture clause within your lease. This means that your landlord could terminate your lease. While this is an extreme reaction, it is something that your landlord could do. This is more likely when the unapproved building alterations made are substantial.

We have come across cases where the landlord has used a breach of a lease as a bargaining tool. For example, if you own a top floor flat but the landlord owns the attic and you unlawfully extend into the attic, the landlord could sell the attic space to you for a price of their choice.

As a leasehold property owner, you will need to request the consent of your landlord. When the landlords consent is required for work to take place, they should give this permission. The only exception is where they believe that they have a legally valid reason to refuse. The consent from the landlord should be given within a reasonable amount of time. If the landlord was to withhold consent unreasonably, they would be in breach of covenant under the lease.

Examples of a landlord unreasonably withholding consent could be a blank refusal with no valid reason. It could be a lack of response within a reasonable time. Your landlord could agree to alterations but with unreasonable conditions. For example, paying a premium which would also be unreasonably withholding consent. Refusing consent based on personal preference and not objective legal grounds would also be classed as unreasonably withholding consent.

Whether or not your landlord is being unreasonable will be assessed on an individual basis by the court. It will be based on the facts of the case.

If you believe that your landlord may have unreasonably refused consent on your leased property, speak to our residential conveyancing experts in Peterborough. Our property dispute solicitors can support you with planning permissions, potential breaches of your leased property or unreasonable refusal of consent.

Call our property dispute legal experts now to find out more.