AEW UK REIT has won its legal battle to secure rent arrears from two UK-listed companies that declined to pay their leases during the pandemic.
The firm announced that, further to its announcement on 23 April regarding the successful outcome of its legal action against the 'well-funded national tenants to recover unpaid rent', that 'neither tenant sought the court's permission to appeal the decision and have now paid all the rent arrears claimed in the proceedings, as well as reaching an agreement on the legal costs incurred'.
The tenants in question were not named by AEW.
Occupier battles
Although the UK government placed a moratorium on evictions at the start of the pandemic, this did not prevent landlords from taking legal action in the case of non-payment of rent.
Towards the end of last year, AEW UK reportedly started proceedings against multiplex chain Cineworld for rental arrears of around £300,000 (€350,000). This was awarded in AEW's favour at the end of April.
Concurrently, it emerged that AEW had been successful in winning a court battle for rental arrears from Mike Ashley's Frasers Group over a Sports Direct store which had failed to pay rent, and against Mecca Bingo, a subsidiary of the Rank Group.
At the time, AEW released a statement saying that: ‘AEWU has always made it clear that it will take legal action against tenants if required, particularly well-resourced companies that it believes are able to pay their rent and have sought to take advantage of government legislation intended to protect financially vulnerable tenants.'
In the latest announcement, AEW confirmed that all rent arrears connected to the two claims had now been paid in full, amounting to £1,200,566 (€1.4 mln).
