Legal advice: Who is responsible for your repairs?

Ongoing repairs to pubs can clearly represent a significant cost to the party responsible for them - with a subsequent impact on the bottom line. It is therefore important to be clear about who bears that responsibility.

Any modern tenancy agreement will set out in detail the repair obligations of the landlord and the tenant. The usual tenancy agreement for, say, three years normally requires the tenant to keep the interior in repair while the landlord has an obligation to keep the exterior good.

Contrast this with long leases, which normally put all the repairing obligations on the tenant: hence their name 'FRI leases' - full repairing and insuring leases.

Remember that even in short-term tenancies, it will normally be the tenant rather than the landlord who has to comply with all 'statutory obligations' - those set out in Acts of Parliament such as health and safety, and making sure your pub complies with the Disability Discrimination Act.

If you occupy under a short term tenancy and you are unsure who is responsible for what, clarify the position with your landlord. If you disagree with their interpretation of the terms then seek expert independent advice from a surveyor or solicitor, to try and break the deadlock.

What happens if you agree with the landlord that repairs need to be done but you cannot agree on the solution? Perhaps you have each obtained quotes which are miles apart financially.

As a general rule, the court says it is up to the party with the repairing obligation to decide what is the most appropriate method of repair. But talk the matter through with the landlord and try to find common ground.

Landlords' powers during the tenancy

Bear in mind that landlords have many weapons at their disposal if a tenant fails to carry out their repairing obligations.

They can threaten to forfeit the tenancy, or apply to the court for an order to compel you to do the works.

In most tenancy agreements the landlord will also have an express power to go into the pub and carry out a tenant's repairs if they fail to carry them out.

The landlord would probably only do this in the last resort, and only if the works are deemed urgent.

The tenancy agreement will probably say the landlord can then recover the cost of those works from you as a debt - which means they are treated the same way as rent.

Tenants' powers during the tenancy

What if the landlord has a duty to carry out certain repairs but fails to do so?

The starting point is to ensure you give the landlord notice of the problem. Landlords do not usually have any duty to inspect - it is up to you as tenant to make them aware there is a fault.

If you give proper notice but the landlord simply will not act, it may be tempting to withhold the rent until they come on site.

Note, however, that your tenancy will probably forbid you from withholding rent under these circumstances. Take advice before considering this course of action.

The principal remedy available to you is to threaten to seek a court order against the landlord compelling them to carry out their obligations. This threat usually does the trick.

At the end of the term

When a tenancy comes to an end the landlord or his surveyor will often serve on you a schedule of dilapidations, identifying items of disrepair which need to be sorted out.

In the past it was not unknown for the surveyor to pluck out the highest figure possible for the works, and use the schedule as just the starting point in negotiations.

Now the courts have made it clear that the schedules must be realistic. And they must be served no later than 56 days after the end of the tenancy.

If you think the landlord might be planning to sell the pub for residential development as soon as you leave, or gut it completely for redevelopment, then ask him what his true intentions are.

The point here is that the landlord is entitled to be compensated if the value of the freehold has been reduced by your failure to keep the pub in repair, but that there may be no loss if the landlord is intending to change the use anyway.