• Contact Us

Coronavirus and Your Commercial Lease - FAQs

on Thursday, 05 March 2020.

As coronavirus (Covid-19) continues to dominate the headlines, we explore its effect on commercial properties such as offices, both for tenants and landlords, and answer your most frequently asked questions.

Is additional cleaning or maintenance of the property included under my lease?

Individual persons should maintain a high standard of hygiene by washing hands. Some employers are also choosing to undertake more rigorous cleaning of offices.  

It is common in a commercial lease for there to be obligations on a landlord to provide services to their tenants, one of which could be cleaning or maintenance of common areas (such as shared toilets and kitchens).

Under most leases, there won’t be an obligation on the landlord to provide any additional cleaning or maintenance, but it would be worth checking your lease to be sure.

If additional cleaning or maintenance of the property is carried out, can this be included within the service charge payment under the lease?

As stated above, if you are a landlord that has obligations under the lease to provide for cleaning or maintenance for the whole or common parts of the property, it may be possible for you to claim for the expenses incurred in taking extra care that those areas are clean. This would be done by charging for the maintenance/cleaning through the service charge, which is recovered from the tenants.

Whether this would be recovered would depend on the wording of a service charge clause. Often, additional services are at the discretion of the landlord. The extent to which they are recoverable depends on whether those costs are reasonable and properly incurred in accordance with good estate management principles.

Are there any health and safety obligations that the coronavirus affects?

The relevant law in this area is the Control of Substances Hazardous to Health Regulations 2002 (COSHH). COSHH can apply in respect to viruses, which could potentially include the coronavirus. Under these regulations you could have obligations such as completing risk assessments and initiating control measures.

You should check your lease to see who is responsible for the disposal of waste, which is likely to have been drafted with non-hazardous waste in mind. If someone at the property is diagnosed with the coronavirus, you may have to consider how to dispose of items they have come into contact with, particularly tissues.

Under my lease, I am obliged as tenant to ensure that there is 24/7 security of the property and I cannot leave it vacant for extended periods of time. What happens if the building is locked down because of coronavirus and this cannot happen?

Again, the terms of the lease will dictate exactly what the obligations are. However, if you are required to leave your premises vacant for an extended period of time, you will want to ensure that they are secure. Best practice will be to keep your landlord and your insurers updated on what is going on, especially if the property has to be left vacant.

I'm about to undertake some works to my property. I have a licence for alterations from the landlord and I am obliged to finish the works within 6 months. However, there is an interruption to the supply chain and I cannot get some of the required materials in time to meet this deadline -will this time be automatically extended?

In most licences, there is a provision stating that the works period is extended if the circumstances of the delay are outside of the control of the parties. However, it will depend on the specific wording of your licence as to whether a delay caused by the coronavirus would result in an extension of time or not. Again, the best thing to do is speak with your landlord as soon as you see any potential issues so that you have the maximum amount of time to deal with them.


Do you need an experienced solicitor to review your lease? Please contact Jess Booz, in our Real Estate team, on 0117 314 5483 or complete the below form.

Get in Touch

First name(*)
Please enter your first name.

Last name(*)
Invalid Input

Email address(*)
Please enter a valid email address

Telephone
Please insert your telephone number.

How would you like us to contact you?

Invalid Input

How can we help you?(*)
Please limit text to alphanumeric and the following special characters: £.%,'"?!£$%^&*()_-=+:;@#`

See our privacy page to find out how we use and protect your data.

Invalid Input