The CBI has published a position paper on the coronavirus commercial rent moratorium, calling for an end of blanket protections for non-payment of rents to mobilise recovery of the commercial property market.
Since March 2020, a government moratorium has been in place protecting commercial tenants from eviction, statutory demands and arrears recovery measures for non-payment of rent due to coronavirus impacts. After several extensions, with the success of the vaccination programme and the phased easing of restrictions on businesses, the government has committed to ending the current protections on 30 June 2021.
What has the CBI said?
The CBI brought together members from across the economy, including tenants, landlords and investors, to discuss options that optimise towards a market-led recovery. The CBI paper called on commercial tenants to resume paying rents as normal when the moratorium ends – with limited exceptions in cases of extreme financial difficulty caused by this year’s lockdown measures.
Through several drafts and consultative feedback, the CBI developed a wide-ranging position paper that reflects the need to protect the hardest-hit businesses that have been forced to close for much of 2021, while enabling normal co