Landlord and Tenant Act 1987

31 Determination of terms by rent assessment committees. E+W

(1) A rent assessment committee shall have jurisdiction to determine the terms on which the landlord’s interest in the premises specified in an acquisition order may be acquired by the nominated person to the extent that those terms have not been determined by agreement between the landlord and either—

(a) the qualifying tenants in whose favour the order was made, or

(b) the nominated person;

and (subject to subsection (2)) such a committee shall determine any such terms on the basis of what appears to them to be fair and reasonable.

(2) Where an application is made under this section for such a committee to determine the consideration payable for the acquisition of a landlord’s interest in any premises, the committee shall do so by determining an amount equal to the amount which, in their opinion, that interest might be expected to realise if sold on the open market by a willing seller on the appropriate terms and on the assumption that none of the tenants of the landlord of any premises comprised in those premises was buying or seeking to buy that interest.

(3) In subsection (2) “the appropriate terms” means all of the terms to which the acquisition of the landlord’s interest in pursuance of the order is to be subject (whether determined by agreement as mentioned in subsection (1) or on an application under this section) apart from those relating to the consideration payable.

(4) On any application under this section the interests of the qualifying tenants in whose favour the acquisition order was made shall be represented by the nominated person, and accordingly the parties to any such application shall not include those tenants.

(5) Subsections (2), (4) and (5) of section 13 shall apply for the purposes of this section as they apply for the purposes of that section, but as if the reference in subsection (5) to subsection (1) of that section were a reference to subsection (1) of this section.

(6) Nothing in this section shall be construed as authorising a rent assessment committee to determine any terms dealing with matters in relation to which provision is made by section 32 or 33.