A long lease contains a covenant “not to use the leased property (or permit it to be used) for any purpose whatsoever other than as a private residence.”
If the long leaseholder advertises the property (a flat) for short term lets and grants a sequence of such lettings, is the leaseholder in breach of the covenant?
In Nemcova v Fairfield Rents Ltd [2016] the United Kingdom Upper Tribunal (Lands Chamber) said to avoid breaching the covenant, there must be a connection between the occupier and the residence such that the occupier would think of it as his or her residence albeit not for ever. “The occupier for the time being must be using it as his or her private residence.”
If the occupier is in the property for a matter of days (rather than weeks or months or years) that is a material pointer to the fact that the occupier is not using the property as a private residence.
To be used as the occupier’s private residence, there must be a degree of permanence extending beyond “being there for a weekend or a few nights in the week.”
Where a person occupies for a matter of days and then leaves the property it cannot be said that whilst occupying they were using the property as their private residence.
The occupation there would so transient that the occupier would not consider the property they were staying in as being their private residence even for the time being.
Each case is depends on it’s facts, relying upon the interpretation of the particular covenant against it’s factual background.
Based on the context in which this lease was granted, and the nature of the proposed relationship between the long lessor and long lessee and taking account the obligations entered into, the appellant had inevitably breached the private residence covenant by granting very short term lettings (days and weeks rather than months).
The tribunal said it was not possible to give a definitive answer to the question posed at the beginning of this piece save to say that ‘It all depends’.
This blog has been posted out of general interest. It does not replace the need to get bespoke legal advice in individual cases.
Original article: Very short term lettings breached “private residence” covenant.