The Small Business, Enterprise and Employment Act 2015 (Commencement No. 2 and Transitional Provisions) Regulations 2015 (SI 2015/1689) have brought into force on 1 October 2015 sections 35 and 36 of The Small Business, Enterprise and Employment Act 2015. Sections 35 and 36 amend the Landlord and Tenant Act 1954, Part II, by excluding from protection tenancies entered into on or after 1 October 2015 where the tenant carries on a home business. This amendment has also been brought into force in Wales on the same date by The Small Business, Enterprise and Employment Act 2015 (Commencement No. 1) (Wales) Regulations 2015.
The amendment inserts a new section 43ZA into the 1954 Act which excludes home business tenancies from Part II of the 1954 Act. A home business tenancy is a tenancy under which (a) a dwelling-house is let as a separate dwelling, (b) the tenant or, where there are joint tenants, each of them, is an individual, and (c) the terms of the tenancy: (i) require the tenant or, where there are joint tenants, at least one of them, to occupy the dwelling-house as a home (whether or not as that individual’s only or principal home); (ii) permit a home business to be carried on in the dwelling-house, or permit the immediate landlord to give consent for a home business to be carried on in the dwelling-house; and (iii) do not permit a business other than a home business to be carried on in the dwelling-house. Accordingly, where the landlord is prepared to consent to a home business being carried on, the tenancy will not acquire 1954 Act protection. In addition, section 23 of the 1954 Act is amended (inserting a new subsection (5)) so that where a tenant breaches a prohibition (however expressed) of use for business purposes by carrying on a home business (as defined in section 43ZA), Part II of the Act will not apply to the tenancy, even if the immediate landlord or the immediate landlord’s predecessor in title has consented to the breach or the immediate landlord has acquiesced in the breach.