Your lease obligations

Pat Ahern of Ronan Daly Jermyn Solicitors explains PSRA form and lease rights

MINISTER for Justice Alan Shatter has sought to ensure transparency as regards rent levels for commercial properties, but it seems to have slipped under the radar that a tenant under any commercial property lease entered into on or after Apr 3, 2012, must submit a completed form to the Property Services Regulatory Authority (PSRA) setting out specified details of the terms and contents of the lease.

This information includes, in some considerable detail, the commencement date of the lease; any capital consideration to be paid by the tenant or landlord under the lease; rent review details; details of who is to be responsible for rates, insurance, service charge and repairs; the net floor area (per floor) of the property; details of rent free periods, fitting out times, fitting out allowances and capital contribution; details of any break clause; stamp certificate number.

The form must then be signed by or on behalf of the tenant, and it is an offence to deliberately furnish incomplete, inaccurate or misleading information. Following a rent review, the tenant must give notice (in a form still to be prepared by the PSRA) of the review and any changes. If and when the tenant ceases to be the tenant (e.g. by surrender, termination of the lease by agreement, exercising a break clause, or perhaps selling the lease on) the tenant must again give notice of this to the PSRA.

Any confidentiality clause is to be ignored, and details must be specified as in the form.

If the various returns are not made (without reasonable excuse) within 30 days after stamping of the relevant agreement or lease, failure to make the return will be an offence.

The PRSA is also to establish and maintain a “Commercial Leases Database” which will be available to view (on payment of an appropriate fee) both at its offices and also on its website, containing the information garnered from the returns lodged by tenants, which the minister believes will afford access to transparent and accurate information of comparable rent arrangements. There is also scope for the PSRA to backdate the obligation to make a return regarding a lease for a period of up to five years prior to Apr 3. A commercial property lease is a lease of property used for the purposes of a business, and there is no exclusion for sales of commercial property by way of long lease.