legal-terms legal-writing
How to parse &#39;notwithstanding ... forfeiture is avoided otherwise than by relief&#39;?
<blockquote>
<p><a href="http://www.holmes-hills.co.uk/articles/commercial-leases-recovering-the-costs-of-serving-a-notice/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">[Source:]</a> The landlord argued that the tenant must pay the administration costs based on the covenant[,] given by the tenant in the lease which read as follows:</p>
<p>“To pay all expenses (including Landlord’s solicitors’ costs and surveyors fees)<br />
incurred by the Landlord [,and] incidental to the preparation and service of notice under Section 146 of the Law of Property Act 1925<br />
<strong>notwithstanding that forfeiture is avoided otherwise than by</strong> relief granted by the court.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>What does the bolded mean? I wish to understand it in terms of the bolded sentence as written; so please don't just paraphrase it. For example, I'm confused by the combined use of <strong>notwithstanding</strong> (preposition), <strong>otherwise</strong> (adverb), and <strong>than</strong> (conjunction).</p>
<p>Footnote: The quote concerns UK law, but similar diction is found in <a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=%22avoided+otherwise+than+by%22&amp;ie=utf-8&amp;oe=utf-8&amp;gws_rd=cr&amp;ei=ntBwVa-iL_O_sQSZqbjgAw" rel="nofollow noreferrer">other juridsdictions</a>.</p>

<p>One possible reading of this clause is:</p>

<p>The tenant is required to pay for the preparation of a forfeiture notice, even if ("notwithstanding that") the forfeiture doesn't actually happen ("forfeiture is avoided")--but the tenant doesn't have to pay for the notice if the forfeiture doesn't happen for the following reason ("avoided otherwise than by"): because the court said so ("by relief granted by the court").</p>

<p>In other words: if the Court says the forfeiture notice is bogus, the tenant doesn't have to pay for it. Otherwise, he or she does.</p>
