Landlords and tenants need to work together in coronavirus crisis

The issues caused by the coronavirus pandemic is impacting the economy in a way that was unimaginable just a few months ago.

It has caused a myriad of legal questions, and right up there at the top are issues for landlords, tenants and many property investors.

As huge swathes of the economy has ground to a halt and much of Britain has stopped earning, some landlords and their tenants, be they commercial or residential have found themselves at loggerheads.   

Of course, at the moment some landlords are treating the economic disruption as the tenant’s problem, whether they are residential or commercial occupants.

However, tenants worried about their livelihoods have been looking for sympathetic landlords who can cut them some slack.

In all, it has led to mass confusion and in some cases conflict.

For instance, from a commercial landlord’s view point, we can see that many will think the occupants will have business interruption insurance in place covering them.

However, tenants finding themselves in a scenario that they could never have imagined, could find that their insurance won’t cover the business interruption losses caused by the enforced closure of their businesses.

From the work we have been involved with the majority of commercial tenants will not be able to pass on their coronavirus closure losses to their landlords (in the event of forced closures) but this is not true in 100 per cent of cases, and each case will have to be looked at individually, having regard to the specific terms of the lease, insurance policies of both tenants and landlords.

It means legal advice has to be sought to get to the heart of the matter.

Equally, private residential landlords are understandably concerned about tenants who may find that they no longer have any work once the initial impact of the economic fallout can be looked at in a clearer light.

It is for this reason that property legal experts dealing in landlord and tenant issues, such as ourselves at Dale & Newbery are finding that we are much in demand.

It is tempting for some landlords and tenants to try to use Google to get to the heart of their legal problems, but we ask you to adopt the sensible approach and get expert advice for complex matters.

We urge everyone to keep calm heads in these most difficult of times and hope landlords and tenants can co-operate to support each other.

If you do need our help whatever side of the fence you sit on, please do contact us today. We’re here to help.