Licence to Occupy Offices Agreement Template (P101)

What is this Licence to Occupy Offices for?

This licence is a relatively flexible, short term agreement of less than six months to occupy offices – or other business premises.  The licensee does not have a right of exclusive occupation and does not get the same protection as a tenant of business premises under English law.

What are the main issues?

A licence differs from a lease or tenancy agreement.

A tenant of business premises usually has  some protection from being evicted when their lease comes to an end.   Under Part 2 of the Landlord & Tenant Act 1954 a tenant usually has the right to negotiate a new agreement, unless the tenant agreed to exclude their rights at the time the agreement was signed.

With a licence, by contrast, you have no right to renew a licence once the landlord (or licensor) asks you to leave.

And  a licence to occupy offices or other business premises differs from a tenancy in other ways: the licensee does not have the right to exclusive possession of the premises and the licensor can give notice to terminate at any time.

Also, be careful to get the wording right.  So, when  the legal effect of the terms of an agreement is to create the rights and obligations of a tenancy, then a tenancy is created even though an agreement is called a ‘licence’.

If you want a business lease, we have a selection of templates on our business leases page

What detailed terms does the licence contain?

This document contains 6 clauses covering

• definitions and interpretation
• the licence
• licensee’s undertakings
• power of licensor to affix notice boards
• power to determine licence
• a general clause detailing assignment, warranty, legal costs, notices and the contracts (rights of third parties) act 1999

You need this document if you are a landlord looking to offer a short-term occupation of your business premises to a licensee.

For more information,  see our Explanatory Notes  which you will  receive when you download the document from our website.

When I download the document, can I change it and/or use it more than once?

Yes, all ContractStore’s templates are in MS Word and you can use the document on more than one project. For more information, watch the video on this page of our website or see our FAQs

Legal support

ContractStore supplies templates and is not a law firm.  But all our templates are written by experienced lawyers so we can arrange legal assistance for customers who need special terms in one of our documents or a bespoke template. . For more information see our Legal Services page.

And if you want to contact us see our Contacts page.