Ground rent reviews: to what extent can time be made of the essence?
Where residential leases provide for a ground rent to be paid, it’s not uncommon for the ground rent to be subject to review. The revised rent is likely to be determined by a surveyor (appointed by the landlord), and for the review to be undertaken ‘at any time’ after a certain number of years have passed. But what happens if a landlord doesn’t act quickly? Can a leaseholder stipulate that the review must be completed by a specified date and time?
This was the question for the Upper Tribunal (Lands Chamber) in the recent case of Proxima GR Properties Limited v Spencer [2017] UKUT 450 (LC) and the subject of Cassandra Zanelli’s latest blog.
