Clarise Properties Ltd v Rees & Anor [2017] EWCA Civ 1135
Clarise Properties Ltd v Rees & Anor [2017] EWCA Civ 1135
The appeal in Clarise Properties Ltd v Rees and another has been dismissed by the Court of Appeal. Barry Denyer-Green, counsel for the successful respondents, says that the leading judgment of Henderson LJ contains useful guidance for rent review disputes. This was an appeal from the Upper Tribunal on the true construction of a rent review clause, which read that, every 25 years, the new rent should be:
"… such annual rent (being not less than the rent payable immediately prior to each relevant Rent Review Date) being a sum representing the open market letting value of the land hereby leased as if it were a vacant site without any buildings thereon ("the Site") to be assessed in accordance with current open market values of the Site at each relevant Rent Review Date when the said Site shall fall to be re-assessed as if it were at such Rent Review Date available for residential development for purposes authorised by the Town & country [sic] Planning Acts …"
A peculiarity of that clause was that there was simply no open market evidence for the rental value of a cleared site in the open market. Clarise is therefore a significant consideration of the operation of rent review clauses based on a hypothetical transaction for which there was, in fact, no comparable transaction evidence available in the real world.
The full judgment is available here
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