The Millennium Hotel on George Square Glasgow is one of a number of railway hotels that was built to service railway stations. Built in 1855, it was originally called the Queens Hotel and opened a few years after Queen St station.
170 or so years later and, as part of the redevelopment of Queen Street Station, the 1970's extension of the Hotel was demolished.
DISPUTE
Subsequently, the tenant and Network Rail disagreed over the compensation that was due for the demolition.
The Lands Tribunal is the place for compensation of this nature to be determined. To do that, it had to decide if the following repairing obligation limited the tenant's liability to the condition the hotel was in at the start of the lease.
"The Tenants [Applicant] hereby accept the premises in their present condition as suitable for the purpose for which they are let and undertake to uphold, maintain and keep the premises in good and tenantable order and condition at all times during the currency of this Lease which obligation shall include the maintenance of the premises wind and watertight and the upholding of the water supply and drainage both within and without the premises all to the reasonable satisfaction of the Landlord [Respondent], provided however that the Tenants [Applicant] will not be obliged to maintain the premises in any better condition than they are at the date hereof, as such condition shall be evidenced by a Schedule of Condition in respect of the premises to be agreed by the parties or, failing agreement, to be settled by arbitration in terms of Clause THIRTY FIRST hereof …”
DECISION
The Tribunal decided that this was a full repairing obligation that obliged the tenant to keep the hotel in good and tenantable order and condition.
It decided that the acceptance of the Hotel in their present condition did no more than stop the tenant arguing that the Hotel was in a condition suitable for the purposes for which they are let. Although it discussed by the Tribunal, those words also confirm that the landlord has performed its common law obligation of providing premises that are tenantable.
The standard of repair was qualified by a schedule condition, but only if one was agreed or settled by arbitration. Neither party could provide a schedule of condition that had been agreed or decided at arbitration, and so the "good and tenantable" standard applied.
MISSING SCHEDULE
Unsurprisingly, the tenant relied on the Dem‑Master Demolition Limited v Healthcare Environmental Services Limited decision to argue that a missing schedule of condition doesn't necessarily stop the repairing obligation from being qualified.
The difference between that case and this one, said the Tribunal, was that in Dem-Master the parties had agreed the schedule of condition and appended it to the lease but a copy could not be found, whereas in this case, the Schedule hadn't yet come into existence.
The number of schedule of condition cases are on the rise, and this case shows that if one doesn't exist, a court won't always come to your rescue.
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