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Assignment
See also the pages dealing with Consents and the Landlord and Tenant (Covenants) Act 1995 in this section of the site.
Exercise of rights after re-assignment
A party to a lease with the benefit of an option agreement (a put option) in relation to a lease, who had assigned the lease, could after taking back the lease, exercise the benefit of the option agreement. There was nothing in the agreement that prevented it from doing so. Arden LJ at para 15: "In the present case, the option is contained in a document which is separate from the lease. It confers an option on the assignee as against the assignor. The landlord is not involved. Moreover, the option holder is described as "the Purchaser" and not by any expression which would restrict its capacity to that of tenant under the lease. If the position had been otherwise, it would clearly be arguable that its status was limited to its status as assignee pursuant to the assignment to it by Lloyds ... I have already found that clause 12 has the meaning explained above. It would not be justified to add to that meaning. On this basis, the put option did not cease to be exercisable on a permanent basis when the lease ceased to be vested in the oil companies. At that point, it ceased to be exercisable but it became exercisable once again when the lease was revested in the oil companies. The indications are that the parties did not contemplate that the Purchaser would assign the lease and then take a re-assignment back to itself. However, by the same token, the parties have not included the provisions necessary to prevent that happening."
BP Oil UK Ltd v Lloyds TSB Bank plc [2004] EWCA Civ 1710.
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