Shropshire Farming Talk: Repairing obligations within an agricultural tenancy agreement

 These matters must be addressed and included by the parties if they wish to make provision for them. 

This position is in contrast to tenancies governed by the Agricultural Holdings Act (AHA) 1986 in which the parties can make specific provisions if they wish, albeit in the absence of such agreement the AHA includes an automatic fallback mechanism, through the model clauses. 

The model clauses are considered to be included within all AHA tenancies. 

When drafting a tenancy agreement, it is always important to ensure that if the parties wish to use the model clauses, the ability to refer to later updated versions or amendment of the model clauses is provided for. 

Failure to include the ability to use the latest version will result in the parties being restricted to the version that was in force at the time the tenancy agreement was drafted. 

Careful consideration to the model clauses should always be given when drafting an agreement and the parties should consider other terms of the tenancy such as the rent and the length of term, to determine whether the model clauses are appropriate. 

Parties should also be mindful of the condition of the holding and specific items forming part of that holding, in relation to their repairing obligations and the proposed wording of the repairing clauses of the tenancy. 

There may be an obligation on the Tenant to simply repair or indeed to put and to keep in repair which may have significantly distinctive consequences on the expectations of the parties.   

Where an obligation is placed upon a tenant, there is often an allowance for fair wear and tear which releases the Tenant from liability to a certain degree if the disrepair is caused by the reasonable use of the item for the purpose for which they were let. 

For further information on repairing obligations please contact  me at  kathrynwilliams@dmpcuk.com  

by Kathryn Williams, Davies Meade