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Commercial Rent (Coronavirus) Act 2022

Contents

Legal background

  1. During the pandemic, the Government introduced a range of measures to assist businesses struggling to pay their rent, including:
    1. a moratorium on forfeiture of commercial leases under section 82 of the Coronavirus Act 2020;
    2. restrictions on the use of the Commercial Rent Arrears Recovery (CRAR) regime (which enables landlords to recover rent arrears through the seizure of tenants’ goods, established by the Tribunals, Courts and Enforcement Act 2007 and Taking Control of Goods Regulations 2013/1894) by amendments, most recently the Taking Control of Goods (Amendment) (Coronavirus) Regulations 2021/300;
    3. restrictions on the service of winding up petitions under Schedule 10 to the Corporate Insolvency and Governance Act 2020 (this measure was tapered as of 1 October 2021, still preventing winding up on the basis of unpaid rent).
  2. All of these measures were temporary. The moratorium on forfeiture of commercial leases and measure regarding CRAR ended on 25 March 2022, and protection against winding-up petitions (in certain circumstances) on 31 March 2022.
  3. The Act establishes a system of binding arbitration to resolve disputes between landlords and tenants about arrears under business tenancies, where the premises or the tenant business has been subject to mandatory closure under regulations made under the Public Health (Control of Disease) Act 1984 during the COVID 19 pandemic. Rent under such tenancies can be considered by the arbitrator if it relates to a period (or part of this period) starting on 21 March 2020 (when the first such restrictions came into force in England and Wales respectively) and ending for a business when the regulations providing for closure of the business or restrictions on operating or use of premises for the relevant sector were lifted.

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