Unclear Drafting Leads to Court Appearance to Allocate Repair Bills

When a landlord granted a lease over a maisonette to a tenant then subsequently alleged that the lease was drafted incorrectly, it took the intervention of the court to decide who was to pay how much for repairs to the property.



The landlord claimed that the lease contained an error in the clause that apportioned the charges for repairs. In the clause, the word ‘premises’ had been used rather than ‘house’. Replacing the former word with the latter would mean that the tenant was responsible for upwards of 10 per cent more of the cost of the repairs to the property, because the house was the entire property, whereas the ‘premises’ were that part of the property represented by the maisonette.



The landlord sought a declaration from the court that the relevant clause of the lease should be construed such that the word ‘house’ replaced the word ‘premises’. The tenant opposed the application, pointing out that if the landlord’s argument were accepted, she would be made responsible for repairs to parts of the property which did not benefit her.



The dispute reached the Court of Appeal, which ruled that the lease must be construed as written as there was no obvious error.



This case illustrates how important it is that all the terms of any agreement are clearly understood and carefully drafted to reflect the wishes of the parties concerned, otherwise the lack of clarity can lead to an expensive dispute.