The Ministry of Sound (MOS) is a well-known nightclub in the UK and is internationally renowned. It can accommodate up to 1,500 people at any given time and it has a 24 hour seven days a week premises licence – which is a comparative rarity today.
It is situated close to Elephant and Castle in London and has been at its present site since 1991. Its current lease (prior to this case) was for 15 years and it expired in September 2024. MOS therefore applied to the court for a new lease.
The landlord was not opposed to a new lease and the central issue in the case was – should the landlord be entitled to a redevelopment break clause on a rolling basis after 4 years when there was no such clause in the current lease?
The landlord argued that this property was ripe for development and that there had been plenty of such proposals over the previous 10 years. MOS put forward arguments about the effect of a rolling break clause on its business. It believed that if such a break clause was inserted in the new lease it would have to cancel long term bookings and sponsorship deals. MOS said that an uncertain occupational future would also destabilise its operational decisions and relationships and ultimately threaten the viability of its business.
The judge was unconvinced by MOS’s arguments. He said that not inserting such a clause would give “unjustified primacy” to MOS at the expense of the landlord and that result would fail to recognise the balance of competing commercial interests which is required under the Landlord and Tenant Act 1954.
The judge therefore ordered the insertion of a rolling redevelopment break clause with effect from 2028 (which is just 4 years from the start of the new lease) such clause to be exercisable on 9 months written notice.
The case is a signal that the courts are willing to order redevelopment break clauses in leases even when they are strongly opposed by tenants who have built up substantial businesses over a long period of time in a particular location.
Ministry of Sound Ltd v The British and Foreign Wharf Company Ltd [2025] – Central London County Court
