Are you aware of the repairing obligations on your agricultural property? Time to dig out the Model Clauses..
The first port of call is to look at the tenancy agreement. For the vast majority of Agricultural Holdings Act and many Farm Business Tenancies, repairs will fall back onto the Model Clauses. Commonly, the statutory instrument that deals with this is The Agriculture (Maintenance, Repair and Insurance of Fixed Equipment) Regulations 1973.
Under the Model Clauses, tenants are required to repair and to keep and leave clean and in good tenantable repair, order and condition the farmhouse and farm buildings together with all fixtures and fittings, fences, hedges, gates and posts. Tenants are also obliged to keep clean and in good working order all roof valleys, eaves-guttering, downpipes and to protect from any willful, reckless or negligent damage and report any such damage to the landlord. Internal decoration should be carried out at intervals of not more than 7 years.
However it is a landlord’s responsibility to deal with structural items including replacement of roofs, eaves-guttering, downpipes, doors and windows. In the case of doors, windows, skylights, eaves-guttering and downpipes, the landlord can recover 50% of costs. It is also Landlords' responsibility - at intervals of not more than 5 years - to paint or treat all external wood and iron work of the house, cottages and buildings.
The regulations allow either party, on the failure of the other to do his repairs, to carry them out himself and to recover the reasonable costs from the other, provided ‘a reasonable period’ has elapsed after sending a written request to the other to do the repairs. The written request comes in the form of a Notice to Remedy. Either party may contest this with a counter notice within one month.
Subsequently (in the absence of a valid counter notice) should the work not have been completed in full, a Case D Notice to Quit may be served by the landlord requiring possession for failure to comply with the work. The tenant may contest this via a counter notice and then it will fall in the hands of an Agricultural Land Tribunal who will decide whether a fair and reasonable landlord would insist upon possession.
Clearly this is a complex area of agricultural law and it pays to be well advised on the subject. It is often the case that it is the parties’ lack of attention to the allocation of responsibilities under the Model Clauses which results in the degradation of farm holdings.
If you require further information please contact Louise Lock at the Stafford office on 01785 220044 email louise.lock@fishergerman.co.uk
