UK government extends restrictions protecting commercial tenants

The government has confirmed an extension to the moratorium protecting commercial tenants from being evicted from leasehold premises until the end of the year. This applies to England, and follows the lead that Wales set when it extended the moratorium last week.

The new regulations provide an extension to the existing tenant safeguards as follows:

• the protection from forfeiture of business tenancies for non-payment of rent under s82 of Coronavirus Act 2020 (due to expire on 30 September) will be extended to 31 December 2020 in England; and
• the restrictions on the exercise of Commercial Rent Arrears Recovery (CRAR) will be extended similarly (extending the number of days’ rent that must be outstanding to 276 days’ rent where the notice of enforcement is given on or before 24 December 2020 and 366 days’ rent where the notice of enforcement is given on or after 25 December 2020);

The government is also considering a similar extension to the restriction on statutory demands / winding-up introduced in the Corporate Insolvency and Governance Act 2020.

The full statement which encourages landlords and tenants to work together in good faith (in accordance with the recently-published Code of Practice) can be read here.