There is no doubt that as a consequence of the pandemic, the way
we work and live has changed. Our attitudes, our priorities - they
have all shifted slightly. They say the days of people working in
the office are over, commentators speak of people moving west to
work remotely, of hotels being repurposed, of the retail experience
fundamentally changing. So yes, the world has changed, but the hard
truth is that the pandemic cannot change the world retrospectively.
Meaning, if you agreed to something in 2018 you cannot necessarily
get out of the agreement because in 2020, the rug was pulled out
from under all of us.
This position is becoming very apparent in the world of property
as slowly, disputes – in particular between landlords and
tenants on the interpretation of leases - are finding their way
through the courts. The rules around interpretation of contracts
have been examined and the consistent takeaway from recent
judgments is that the words in a contract must be
