Where the cost of repair works amounts to a significant proportion of the value of the property itself, the works may be deemed to fall outside the ambit of a repair covenant.

A tenant was held not liable to rebuild a house which had to be demolished due to its wooden foundations having rotted.

Where works would affect the whole or substantially the whole of the building, making the building different from the one demised, such works are likely to fall outside the ambit of a repair covenant.

Basement built with porous cement so basement flooded when water table rose, though this caused no physical damage to the building. Tenant not liable to correct the design fault.

Repair does not require the correction of design faults unless the design fault causes further physical damage to the property and the only way to correct this physical damage is to correct the design fault from which it flows.

Lack of insulation around single-glazed windows caused condensation resulting in damage to house contents and decoration. Landlord not liable to repair this design fault with the windows.

Repair does not require the correction of design faults unless the design fault causes further physical damage to the property and the only way to correct this physical damage is to correct the design fault from which it flows.

Stone cladding on a block of flats cracked and was in danger of falling off the building, due to a failure to install expansion joints. Tenant was held liable under his covenant to repair. The work required repair to only a trivial part of the building in total and the improvement would not change the nature of the building.

Whether repair falls into the ambit of an express covenant to repair is a question of degree. Where it involves giving the landlord back something wholly different from that which he demised, it will fall outside the ambit.