Litigation and disputes · Property litigator, supervising partner, counsel-facing associate
A court-ready research memo on forfeiture and relief
A commercial tenant is in arrears and has broken a repairing covenant. The landlord has peaceably re-entered. The note separates the two grounds for forfeiture and states the effect of re-entering without a court order.
- Agents
- First draft
- A grounded research answer in under a minute; a court-ready note follows from the same matter, unattended.
- Steps
- 5
The problem
Step 01 of 05
Ask the research question
The Research an authority composer chip pre-fills the prompt: relief from forfeiture in each case, whether section 146 applies to the rent arrears, and the effect of re-entering without a court order.
Step 02 of 05
Read the two regimes
Section 146 of the Law of Property Act 1925 does not apply to rent arrears; it does apply to the repairing covenant, engaging the Leasehold Property (Repairs) Act 1938 gate where the term is long enough.
Step 03 of 05
Produce the court-ready note
The Research Agent runs with Prepare for: Court-Ready and Deliver as: Word, on the Thorough tier, covering both grounds separately with OSCOLA citations.
Step 04 of 05
Read the note
Numbered paragraphs, neutral citations, case names in italics, a clean separation of law from submissions on the facts.
Step 05 of 05
Verify and sign off
Nine authorities, nine verdicts. The partner clicks Verify all before the note goes into the bundle.
What comes back
A document, not a transcript.
- A note separating the rent arrears ground from the repairing covenant ground, each under its own statutory basis.
- The effect of peaceable re-entry on the tenant's right to apply for relief.
- Action items naming what to check, including the unexpired term for the 1938 Act gate and the timing of the section 146 notice.
- Nine authorities with treatment signals such as good law, followed, distinguished or considered.
Authorities it checks
- Law of Property Act 1925, s.146
- County Courts Act 1984, s.138
- Leasehold Property (Repairs) Act 1938
- Billson v Residential Apartments Ltd [1992] 1 AC 494
- Shiloh Spinners Ltd v Harding
- Toms v Ruberry
What it does not do
- It does not decide whether the section 146 notice was served before or after the breach occurred; it names that as the open question the case turns on.
- It does not file anything with a court. The note is a draft for counsel to work from.
- Where a proposition rests on the standard form's own wording rather than reported authority, it says so instead of dressing a clause up as a case.