Your premises are connected to the outside world by pipes wires and cables.
In the lease they usually come under the heading of “conduits” or “service media”, or some such general description.
In one standard form of lease, the list includes: “pipes, sewers, drains, mains, ducts, conduits, gutters, watercourses, wires, cables, laser optical fibres, data or impulse transmission, communicational reception systems, channels, flues and all other conducting media – including plant fixtures and fittings and other ancillary apparatus – that are in, on, over or under the property”.
You’d be hard put to be more comprehensive than that!
“Services” may be a more convenient term to use, since it covers the contents as well as the containers.
The thing about services is they go everywhere through a building – they will not be confined to one part only. So, figuring out the best way to arrange for them to be repaired is slightly complicated.
You, as tenant, will certainly be very interested in ensuring that all the services you need are constantly provided. Even if you are on an upper floor, without toilets or sinks, you will still have very practical interest in the drains, sewers and water supplies, because you will need to use the toilets in the building.
Your more immediate concern will be for the services you are using within your premises – certainly, electricity and perhaps special data cabling.
This is the way that apportioning responsibility is usually handled. Any service media which are exclusively within your premises, and which only serve your premises, are for you to maintain. So any cabling you run from the mains supply connected to your premises is your responsibility to sort out.
Service media which provide services to more than one set of premises within a building, or which are within the common parts of the building, or in other parts retained by the landlord – these are the responsibility of the landlord.
This is not the only way for such matters to be arranged, but it is the most common one.
However it is arranged, your solicitors must make sure that the arrangements are watertight. (Excuse the pun.)
First of all, the clause or schedule in the lease which sets out the rights granted to you as tenant must include the right to connect to the services which exist in the building.
Second, the landlord must be under an obligation to you to keep all those services in operation and in repair. They may need to be other rights and obligations, depending on the specific setup.
For metered services, you will have your own arrangements with the supplier to pay for the services. Where services are made available in the building as a whole, there may be an obligation in the lease for you to pay a fair proportion, or a specified proportion, or it may be part of the overall service charge arrangements.