Rent review — Construction of user clause — Compliance with planning Acts — Change of use within class III of Use Classes Order 1972 — Whether reference extends to Use Classes Order 1987 — Application by lessors refused
The plaintiffs are the lessors of premises at the Dame Alice Owen Technology Centre, 251-279 Goswell Road, London EC1; the defendant is the lessee. The lease was granted in 1983 and contains a rent review clause incorporating the user provisions of the actual lease. The relevant user clause provides the usual bar against uses amounting to a nuisance, that the premises are to be used for the business of the lessee, “… or with the consent of the Landlord (such consent not to be unreasonably withheld) any other use within class III of the Use Classes Order 1972”. The clause also provides that the lessee is “At all times during the Term to comply in all respects with the provisions and requirements of the Planning Acts in respect of the use of the demised premises or any trade or business carried on therein and not to carry out or permit or suffer to be carried out in or upon the demised premises or any part of them any development or change of use within the meaning of the Planning Acts”. The lessors contended that as the Town and Country Planning (Use Classes) Order 1987 has now replaced the 1972 Order, the 1987 Order should now apply to the user clause for the purposes of the rent review.
Held The declaration sought by the lessors could not be made.
The relevant clause refers to other matters besides the Use Classes Order 1972; the wording showed an intent, in that clause, that the clause referred only to the 1972 Order. There was no justification for the construction urged by the lessors.
Brett v Brett Essex Golf Club Ltd
[1986] 1 EGLR 154 considered.
Richard Glover (instructed by Withers Crossman Block) appeared for the plaintiffs; and Joseph Harper (instructed by McKenna & Co) appeared for the defendant.
