Cases - Starmark Enterprises Ltd v CPL Distribution Ltd

Record details

Name

Starmark Enterprises Ltd v CPL Distribution Ltd

Date

(2001); [2002]

Citation

32 EG 89, CA; 4 AII ER 264, CA

Legislation

Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations 1999

Keywords

Commercial property – rent review – trigger notice – review clause provided that it the tenant failed to serve a counternotice to landlord’s trigger notice, the rent would be fixed at that set out in the trigger notice – where the tenant failed to timeously serve a trigger notice , whether the rent was fixed at the level in the trigger notice

Summary

The review clause provided that if the tenant failed, within a specified period, to serve a counternotice to the landlord's trigger notice, the rent review would be fixed at the rent proposed in the trigger notice. Upon the tenant failing to serve a counternotice in time, he was left with the rent proposed by the landlord because those provisions had the effect of implicitly making time of the essence for service of the counternotice.

The Court of Appeal held that a provision that deems acceptance of notified rent will rebut the normal presumption that time is not of the essence of rent review provisions.