Arbitration
London SE18 - 71-77 Powis Street -
13/Oct/1998
My Client, the superior Landlord, owns the freehold of the front section of the property, a ground lease for a term of 999 years of the back section and 99-year lease of the middle section. The middle section is built on a raft over the railway tracks and the rent for that section is a percentage of the entire property. My Client leases the whole property to Powis Street Estates which in turns sub-lets to New Look.
The 99-year lease has rent reviews every 21 years and the lease between my Client and Powis Street Estates also contains rent reviews at 21 year intervals.
For the 1995 rent review, when the store was let to Littlewoods, the review was referred to arbitration, the arbitrator was a senior partner of Jones Lang LaSalle. Littlewoods was represented by a partner of Healey & Baker (now Cushman & Wakefield). In our respective submissions, we considered the rents of stores throughout Greater London. The Award was at almost the same rent as I had originally proposed.
For the 99-year lease review, where my landlord-Client is the tenant, other issues were involved reflecting differences in the leases. To minimise the proposed increase in rent, I research the development history of the building including obtaining copy documents from the solicitors that had acted for the original landlord in 1974. During the negotiations, legal proceedings were initiated against the superior landlord’s surveyor for breach of warranty of authority.