Terminal dilapidations – protocol to ease the pain
As explained in PP 2002/47, and the article to which it referred, there are numerous cases where a tenant can, by relying upon section 18 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1927, resist a claim for terminal dilapidations on the ground that the loss, if any, suffered by the landlord should not be assessed by reference to the cost of remedying the otherwise actionable disrepairs.
What was presumably not foreseen in 1927 was that these eminently sensible provisions (the courts having fallen down on the job) would create a poker table where the parties would be tempted, by calculated tardy disclosure, to bluff and counterbluff each other to the courthouse door, and sometimes beyond.
Recognising that nothing could do greater violence to the cards-on-the-table policy ushered in by the Woolf civil procedure reforms, the Property Litigation Association (PLA), with the support of the RICS, has published its Pre-action Protocol for Terminal Dilapidation Claims for Damages. The draft was examined in detail by PLA treasurer Andrew Myers in Beyond dispute Estates Gazette 7 September 2002, p142. Comments on the finished article may be found in Take up protocol gauntlet Estates Gazette 4 January 2003, p59, contributed by Guy Willets, of Shoosmiths. See also Who’ll pay for putting it right Estates Gazette 8 February 2003, which carries an upbeat message from Edward Shaw of FPDSavills who chairs the RICS Dilapidations Working Group.
Related item:
- For a discussion on the RICS’s guidance notes on the court procedural rules for dilapidations, see Learn how to administer CPR, by Edward Shaw of FPDSavills, chairman of the RICS dilapidations working group, Vivien King (then of DJ Freeman), Peter Beckett, of Beckett & Kay, and Bartle Woolhouse, of Malcolm Hollis, who are members of the RICS dilapidations working group
Terminal dilapidations – protocol to ease the pain
As explained in PP 2002/47, and the article to which it referred, there are numerous cases where a tenant can, by relying upon section 18 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1927, resist a claim for terminal dilapidations on the ground that the loss, if any, suffered by the landlord should not be assessed by reference to the cost of remedying the otherwise actionable disrepairs.
What was presumably not foreseen in 1927 was that these eminently sensible provisions (the courts having fallen down on the job) would create a poker table where the parties would be tempted, by calculated tardy disclosure, to bluff and counterbluff each other to the courthouse door, and sometimes beyond.
Recognising that nothing could do greater violence to the cards-on-the-table policy ushered in by the Woolf civil procedure reforms, the Property Litigation Association (PLA), with the support of the RICS, has published its Pre-action Protocol for Terminal Dilapidation Claims for Damages. The draft was examined in detail by PLA treasurer Andrew Myers in Beyond dispute Estates Gazette 7 September 2002, p142. Comments on the finished article may be found in Take up protocol gauntlet Estates Gazette 4 January 2003, p59, contributed by Guy Willets, of Shoosmiths. See also Who’ll pay for putting it right Estates Gazette 8 February 2003, which carries an upbeat message from Edward Shaw of FPDSavills who chairs the RICS Dilapidations Working Group.
Related item:
For a discussion on the RICS’s guidance notes on the court procedural rules for dilapidations, see Learn how to administer CPR, by Edward Shaw of FPDSavills, chairman of the RICS dilapidations working group, Vivien King (then of DJ Freeman), Peter Beckett, of Beckett & Kay, and Bartle Woolhouse, of Malcolm Hollis, who are members of the RICS dilapidations working group
