Marks & Spencer has won what is being seen as potentially a landmark legal case over the requirement to pay retail rent even when the premises are no longer occupied.
The high street chain won against BNP Paribas Securities Services, part of the French banking giant. M&S demanded repayment of £1.1m for over-payment of rent, car-parking fees, service charges and insurance rent after it vacated rented space at The Point in Paddington after exercising a lease break.

BNP is now appealing so the decision may not stand, but a win would be considered as changing the legal landscape and give tenants hope of securing repayment even when there is no express provision to that effect within property leases.

Commenting on the case, Ross Berridge, property dispute resolution partner at legal firm Thomas Eggar LLP, said: "The court was effectively in agreement with tenants who've long found it difficult to understand why they should be paying rent for periods when they're no longer in occupation."

He said courts may now be willing to imply terms into a lease that rent should be repaid following a break.

"However, the more important lesson is that it's not in the landlord's or the tenant's interest to leave the question open for debate," he added. "Well-drafted modern leases deal expressly with the issue. It's never a happy position to be in to be relying upon implied terms. The moral of this story is that tenants and landlords should agree at the outset whether rent is to be repayable where a break date falls during a rent payment period."