Q&A: The Feeling Is Not Necessarily Mutual

Tom Weekes QC and Laura Bushaway assess the practical implications of a Court of Appeal decision about the grant of consent to a tenant to carry out works where a lease contains an absolute prohibition.

Question

I am the freeholder of a block containing five flats. The lessee of the second-floor flat has requested my consent to keep his pet poodle at the flat and to remove the (non-structural) partition wall between the kitchen and living room. The flat is let on a 99-year lease containing a covenant prohibiting any animals being kept at the flat. Structural alterations are prohibited in the lease but non-structural alterations may be carried out with the landlord's prior written consent. The leases of the other flats within the building are in a similar form. Each contains a provision enabling a leaseholder to require the landlord to enforce any tenant covenants in the leases of the other flats (subject to the leaseholder who made the request paying the costs of