This Licence to Assign a Lease is a licence from the landlord giving consent to the tenant to assign a lease which is a new lease under the Landlord and Tenant (Covenants) Act 1995. An “new” lease is one where date of the lease is on or after 1 January 1996, whereas, an “old” lease is one where the date of the lease is before 1 January 1996. If you are looking for a licence to assign an “old lease” please see: Licence to Assign an Old Lease

Most leases will have terms requiring the consent of the landlord before a tenant can sell or transfer the remaining term of a lease to a new tenant. If this is the case the landlord will need to complete and sign a licence to assign to give permission for the sale or transfer.

A licence to assign is where the landlord gives consent to its tenant to sell or transfer the remaining term of the lease to another party called the “assignee”, who will take over as the new tenant for the remainder of the term of the original lease. The new tenant then becomes primarily responsible for paying the rent to the end of the term.

Please note:  

• Under the lease the landlord may reasonably withhold consent if there are rent arrears or other material breaches of covenant by the tenant at the date of the application.
• The licence contains the landlord's consent to assign to the assignee, which consent lasts for three months from the date of the licence. If the tenant assigns the lease after the expiry of the three month time limit, the tenant will have assigned without consent.
• The licence may constitute a deed of variation in which case it may be liable for SDLT. This is only likely to be the case if there is a variation of the rent.

A Licence to Assign a Lease is different from sub-letting where the existing tenant can be held responsible for any default on the original lease, even though a new tenant is in place.  

This Licence to Assign a Lease is in Microsoft Word format, written in plain English easy to use and edit.