Where a lease designates certain tenant obligations as essential terms and provides for termination upon breach, but does not expressly exclude common law rights of termination, the landlord may terminate for breach of those essential terms under common law contractual principles without complying with statutory notice requirements under s15(1) of the Property Law Act. The designation of obligations as essential terms in a lease serves to preserve, not exclude, common law termination rights. Parties cannot by agreement in a lease fix what constitutes a 'reasonable time' for the purposes of s15(1), because s15(8) provides that the statutory requirement prevails over any stipulation to the contrary. The question whether repudiation and fundamental breach are the same or distinct categories remains open.
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