I am undertaking a lease extension. Can the landlord insist on making variations to the lease?

The short answer to this is ‘yes,’ if the variations are necessary modernisations and the extension is being carried out under the Statute.

The 1993 Act implies certain provisions will have to be included in the new lease (these relate to the landlord’s right to terminate the lease to redevelop the building at the expiry of the original contractual lease term). There are also certain other technical clauses which must be included.

More generally, the question of whether a term can be included or not depends on whether it would be reasonable to include the new term because of changes that have happened since the original lease was granted. The starting point is that the existing lease terms will remain the same, but there are circumstances (particularly in which the lease is defective or out of date) where it may be possible to argue for new clauses to be included.

If you are proceeding outside of the statue then the landlord can ask for whatever terms he would like in the new lease as there is no statutory control over the terms and unless both parties sign up to the process voluntarily the lease will not be extended.