Business Tenancies Law
The current law governing business tenancies in Northern Ireland, the Business Tenancies (Northern Ireland) Order 1996 contains an absolute prohibition on contracting out of the legislation, giving commercial tenants security of tenure. This is in direct contrast to the position in England, Wales and the Republic of Ireland which allow contracting out of their parallel legislation. Following representations made to the Commission that this prohibition is causing difficulties in some classes of transactions such as outsourcing arrangements, Private Finance Initiatives and Public Private Partnerships this project has been submitted and approved as suitable for the First Programme of Law Reform.
The issue of contracting out of the legislation is an important balancing act to protect the interests of both landlords and tenants. There is a need to ensure that there is sufficient flexibility to give effect to commercial arrangements where both parties have equal bargaining power and the regulatory prohibition serves no useful end but to prevent parties from agreeing mutually satisfactory terms. However this must be balanced against the desirability of safeguards for tenants in the small and medium enterprise sector (on the working assumption that such was the original intention of the legislation).
The provision of contracting out could have the result of effective removal of business tenancies protection from tenants who may have little or no business experience and who are without the assistance of professional advice.
The aim of the Business Tenancies Project is to review the existing law on contracting out of security of tenure and to consider whether there is any merit in amending the current legislation in light of the representations made.
The Commission has published a Consultation Paper discussing these issues. The paper is available for download or hard copies are available on request by calling 028 9054 4860 or sending a request by email to info@nilawcommission.gov.uk.
We should be very grateful for any comments or consultation responses that any interested parties might wish to make to us.
The closing date for responses is Thursday 30 September 2010.
Responses should be forwarded by email to: rebecca.riordan@nilawcommission.gov.uk
Or alternatively by post for the attention of: -
Rebecca Riordan
Northern Ireland Law Commission
Linum Chambers
2 Bedford Square
Bedford Street
Belfast
BT2 7ES
Please note that the Northern Ireland Law Commission cannot automatically treat any response as confidential as responses may be disclosable under the Freedom of Information Act 2000. If you wish your response to be confidential, please clearly mark your submission as such. The Northern Ireland Law Commission will disregard automatic confidentiality statements generated by an IT system.
Related documents
Consultation Paper Business Tenancies NILC 5 (2010)
