Lease renewal – length of new term – tenant required to take longer term than requested

Iceland Foods Ltd v Castlebrook Holdings Ltd (Not reported) (Chester County Court) (Mr Recorder Clayton) (3 September 2013)

This interesting decision has just come to my notice. I summarise it briefly for readers because it is topical on the current trend of shorter lease lengths and the modern approach of the courts. This case was an uncontested lease renewal. There were two issues between the parties; length of the new term – tenant proposed five years – landlord proposed 15 years and the amount of the new rent – tenant proposed £37,500 pa and the landlord proposed an initial rent of £182,350 subject to five yearly upwardly only rent reviews. I propose to focus on the lease length issue.