A Forfeiture Of Lease means the terminating of a lease prior to the contractual termination date because of a breach in the lease terms by the tenant.

The effect of forfeiture is that the lease ends from the date of forfeiture and all future obligations under the lease fall away. In order to be able to forfeit there must firstly be a right to forfeit in the lease (which there will be in almost all cases) but otherwise by common law.

If the breach is non-payment of rent (or items reserved as rent under the lease) an enforcement agent (acting as the landlord's agent) can enter the property and forfeit the lease by peaceable re-entry although a landlord must first wait until the right to forfeit has arisen (there is usually a 14 / 21 day grace period in the lease).

When instructing UK Debt Collect to Forfeit, you also instruct UK Debt Collect to prepare an Inventory of all the assets on the demised premises in order to follow up the forfeiture with a "Notice Under Tort (Interference with Goods) Act 1977". This notice notifies the Tenant of the Landlords Intention to Sell Goods once expiry of a reasonable period has lapsed. 21days to 31days is the general period.

On expiry of the period the Landlord may instruct the Bailiffs Office to:

• provide a Valuation of the said assets and recommend if the goods are to be:

1. removed and place into public sale, on completion of sale all costs may be deducted from proceeds.
2. or left on site in order for an auctioneer to carry out a sale on site which generally maximise income as no removal costs are incurred.