Rent owed by a company to the previous owner

[Deleted User]

In 2012 a piece of land was rented our to a hydropower company who built a turbine there and have earnt a large annual income. They paid their rent every quarter but failed to increase the rent on an annual basis, as their lease required them to do. The previous owned died and in 2015 we bought the land and have ensured that the rent has been correct each year (and it is linked to RPI, which is even better!).

The missed payments come to £2785.30. Late payments have a c.3.5% interest charged on top, which makes the total over £3000. Definitely worth chasing!

Am I entitled to claim the rent owed from 2012-2015?

VFR-Rider

you want to claim rent for before you owned it?

BoGoF

Behave yourself.....that belongs to the estate of the deceased.

[Deleted User]

Fair points. Thank you all!

Robert_McGeddon

Deleted_User wrote: »

The previous owned died and in 2015 we bought the land and have ensured that the rent has been correct each year (and it is linked to RPI, which is even better!).

The missed payments come to £2785.30. Late payments have a c.3.5% interest charged on top, which makes the total over £3000. Definitely worth chasing!

Am I entitled to claim the rent owed from 2012-2015?

What did the contract for purchase of the land say? It's possible that the treatment of accrued rent was addressed.

Even if it were, interest may be problematic if the tenant tried to make payments but these were rejected by the former landowner's bank as the account holder had died.

eskbanker

Robert_McGeddon wrote: »

interest may be problematic if the tenant tried to make payments but these were rejected by the former landowner's bank as the account holder had died.

The way I read it, OP's reference to 'missed payments' is misleading, I interpret it as all rent payments having been made every quarter but just that they weren't increased according to the agreed indexation.

Having said that, I'd have thought that it's typically the lessor's responsibility to apply such increases rather than the lessee, e.g. when invoicing, but perhaps this contract differs....