It’s a date – don’t be late

By Lucy Carter, partner and notary public, Austin Moore & Partners

If you think forgetting a birthday or anniversary is painful – just imagine the consequences of missing a key legal date. It’s important when you enter into any legal document, that you diarise any important dates and notice periods specific to them. As obvious as this sounds, it is often tempting after the stress of a transaction to simply file the completed documents and forget about them – job done, on to the next.  We always advise against this, as it can often lead to problems in the future, particularly if any key dates are missed.

Although by no means an exhaustive list, here are some examples of the most common dates that we advise our clients to  diarise in connection with various types of property transactions:

Property sale and purchase contracts

Contracts of any type will always contain crucial dates. In a property context this will of course include the completion date. This sounds obvious its crucial to ensure that funds are ready to deploy on this date. Consider whether there is a lead time to request monies off deposit or, in requesting drawdown of a loan. Get ahead of this and prevent last minute panic.

Conditional contracts in particular include important dates, one of which being the date by which the conditions of the contract must be satisfied (the “longstop’ date”). Exceed this longstop date and it is not uncommon for a right of termination to occur. Conversely, where the conditions of a contract are satisfied within the longstop date, this will trigger a timeline for completion. Prudent to diarise these dates so that, on a basic level, you know when you will have to complete or when you can terminate the contract.

Options to purchase/Pre-emption agreements

If you are entering into an option to purchase or a pre-emption agreement then you should diarise the date the right expires, as well as any period of advance notice needed to be given in order to exercise it. If notice is served without giving the requisite period of notice or, if notice is served outside of the relevant period, then you may lose your right altogether – a punitive punishment for what could be a very simple administrative oversight, hence why it is so important to put these dates in the calendar with alerts.

Leases

• Payment of rent, insurance demands and service charges

As a tenant, if you do not pay these sums when they fall due under the lease, you will likely be liable to pay interest and will be at risk of forfeiture. You may also jeopardise any future lease renewal.

Landlords also need to know when insurance policies need renewing and when any service charge year begins/ends so that service charge accounts are finalised in the time limit specified in the lease.

• Break dates

Your lease may stipulate certain dates, “break dates” at which a lease may be terminated early (whether by landlord or tenant). It’s important to diarise these dates, as well as the period of notice to be given beforehand; that way if you do decide to terminate the lease early, you have plenty of time to fulfil any pre-conditions stipulated within the lease. Break clauses are construed strictly by the English Courts and therefore any such pre-conditions must be strictly complied with otherwise you risk rendering the break right unenforceable.

• Rent reviews

Your lease might specify dates at set intervals during the term (“rent review dates”) at which the annual rent is to be reviewed as per the mechanism set out in the lease. You should log these dates so that you are well prepared to negotiate any such review according to market conditions.

• Decorating years

Some leases stipulate set intervals during the term for the interior and exterior of the let premises to be decorated. Both the landlord and the tenant should note these intervals, the former so the landlord can check the decoration has been carried out satisfactorily and the latter so the tenant can organise the works in good time (and mitigate any disruption they might cause) as well as budget for them accordingly.

• Lease expiry

It is essential to record the date that your lease ends so that you have ample time to  negotiate any required renewal or else comply with any remedial obligations within the lease prior to vacation.

Your legal advisors should highlight the key dates to diarise on completion of the relevant document, but it is highly unlikely that you’ll keep them engaged to remind you of those dates later! It’s vital, therefore, that you diarise these to safeguard your contractual position.

If you need advice in respect of what action to take before any impending important dates, we’re always happy to take a call to discuss.

Tel: 01332 404746