The post-pandemic U.K. regulations that are leaving landlords with nowhere to turn

Post-pandemic U.K. regulations are leaving landlords with nowhere to turn, warns

Katherine Campbell, head of real estate disputes at law firm Reed Smith.

Once again, a landlord’s challenge to a company voluntary arrangement (CVA) has failed. This case serves to highlight what little leverage a landlord now has in the battle to get rent arrears paid.

The U.K. government’s recent decision to extend the existing moratorium on forfeiture of commercial leases for non-payment of rent to 25 March 2022, together with prohibition on the use of bailiffs for rent recovery (unless there are 554 days of rent due and owing), only serves to make the outlook bleaker for landlords. Even the lifting of the moratorium on the use of statutory demands and winding up petitions at the end of September 2021 carries with it the “COVID hurdle”, meaning unless a landlord can show that the failure to pay rent was unrelated to the pandemic’s effects on the tenant’s business, it