What Do I Need To Do Before I Sell My Commercial Property?

June 12th 2024 | commercial property
Before marketing your commercial property, there are a number of compliance matters, which if addressed before the property is sold, can result in a smoother and quicker transaction, reducing the risk of delays and potentially leading to a more favourable sale or refinancing outcome. The first thing to ensure is read more...

Which Covenants Should be Included in my Commercial Lease?

June 4th 2024 | commercial property
As a landlord, it is important that you protect your property from damage and disrepair which would reduce its value over time. Covenants are promises given by both parties to a lease, in which each party agrees to comply with obligations during the term of the lease. Breaches of repair read more...

Rent Quarter Days Explained

April 22nd 2024 | commercial property
When dealing with leases of commercial property, in England and Wales the rent payments are often described as quarterly in advance, which is a significant change from a monthly payment in arrears basis that you would expect to see in a residential lease. Clearly, not only can this be confusing read more...

What Are Capital Allowances and Why Are They Important?

January 17th 2024 | commercial property
When a business makes a capital investment, the expenditure is recorded in the business accounts on the balance sheet as a fixed asset.  These assets will then over time depreciate, however the business is not able to make any deductions for this depreciation when calculating its profit and loss. Taxpayers read more...

VAT in Commercial Property: An Overview

August 16th 2023 | commercial property
As real estate usually makes up a large proportion of a company’s assets and the value of the transactions are usually quite high, it is important for any seller or buyer to think about the tax implications of any transfer or grant of interest in a property. Aside from SDLT read more...

Break Clause Still Valid After 4 Years

April 21st 2023 | commercial property
The High Court has taken being on a break to new heights. It held in a recent case ( Vistra v CDS ) a break notice was still valid four years after being served. The facts of the case get more interesting, the break notice was served by a former read more...

Minimum Energy Efficiency Standards

February 15th 2023 | commercial property
1 April 2023 is a key date for the minimum energy efficiency standards (MEES) to commercial property in England and Wales as from then a landlord cannot continue to let commercial property, regardless of when the lease was entered into, if the property has an energy performance certificate (EPC) rating of read more...

Signs Your Tenant May Be Facing Financial Hardship

January 23rd 2023 | commercial property
It is important for Landlords to spot the warning signs when a commercial tenant is facing financial difficulties to help them minimise their losses. Tenants are often reluctant to let their landlord know if there are issues, but there are some common signs which might indicate a problem. Paying rent read more...

How Do I Break A Lease?

October 20th 2022 | commercial property
As well as having practiced as a property lawyer since 2001 I’ve also been an active property investor and developer and over the years I’ve come across many different scenarios that potentially affect all property professionals so over the next few weeks I’m going to be sharing a few of read more...

Newsflash: Update on Covid and Rent Challenges

August 5th 2022 | commercial property
Following my last blog in October 2021 we shared the gloomy news that three high profile high street tenants, (namely Sports Direct, Mecca Bingo and Cineworld) lost their challenge against payment of rents during the Covid shutdowns in 2020 and 2021. A key argument was that their landlords, Bank of New read more...

The New Coronavirus Commercial Rent Act 2022

July 7th 2022 | commercial property
A new law in England and Wales is now in place to help return order to the commercial property market. It addresses the outstanding rent debts that have accrued during the pandemic. The ‘Commercial Rent (Coronavirus) Act 2022’, which received Royal Assent at the end of March, ended the extended read more...

Covid Rent Arrears: The Government Intervenes

November 30th 2021 | commercial property
The Government has just introduced the Commercial Rent (Coronavirus) Bill into Parliament which seeks to introduce a statutory arbitration process for dealing with any outstanding Covid arrears that arose during a set period.  The Bill grants commercial landlords and tenants, who have not agreed how to deal with Covid closure read more...

Covid and Rent Challenges: This Is Not Over Yet

October 8th 2021 | commercial property
While the vaccine rollout has been a gamechanger for the progress of the pandemic it is it not over and the Government’s announcement this week that further measures could be required over winter sends a worrying chill through UK business, as the prospect of further lockdowns cannot be ruled out.  read more...

Converting Commercial Property to Residential

October 13th 2020 | commercial property
Under the terms of the General Permitted Development Order (GDPO) in 2015, an owner of commercial property may be able to convert that to residential property without specific planning permission.  This means it is entitled to do so under the terms of the GDPO.  It is, however, important to understand read more...

When is a Licence Not a Licence … When it’s a Lease!

May 21st 2020 | commercial property
Short term tenants of commercial premises may sometimes be allowed occupation under the terms of a licence, or even a tenancy at will.  This is an informal way of granting occupation of whole or part of a commercial property, usually for a short period of time, without entering into a read more...

How Do I Exercise A Break Clause?

March 13th 2020 | commercial property
Within the terms of a commercial property lease there is sometimes an opportunity to prematurely determine a lease term before it has come to its contractual end.  This is known as a “break clause” or “early termination provision”. The terms of the break clause within the lease will determine how read more...

Code for Leasing Business Premises updated by RICS

March 5th 2020 | commercial property
In February 2020, the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (“RICS”) launched the Code for leasing business premises in England and Wales, which will officially come into effect on 1st September 2020 (“Lease Code 2020”). The Lease Code 2020 will replace the existing 2007 Code for leasing business premises, which was read more...

Commercial Property: Bank of Mum and Dad?

February 13th 2020 | commercial property
There is perhaps a striking similarity between supporting one’s offspring for a lifestyle they cannot afford and being a tenant of commercial premises.  Frequently commercial leases oblige the tenant to be responsible for certain costs and outgoings on the property.  Obvious provisions such as paying annual rent and a contribution read more...

Three is not Always a Crowd for a Groupie

December 4th 2019 | commercial property
Whereas it is not unusual for a commercial lease to contain provisions dealing with underletting, is an underlease always required when you are sharing occupation of a commercial building, or considering letting a tenant share occupation of a building you may own?  The answer is not necessarily.  It is quite read more...

Thinking of Breaking Up?

November 12th 2019 | commercial property
A relationship between a landlord and a tenant is (usually) governed by a commercial lease which the parties have entered into at the same time as the tenant takes occupation of the property.  Such commercial relationships are, hopefully, usually harmonious.  But what happens when one party wants to end the read more...

Side Letter Leggings or Full Denim Deed?

October 29th 2019 | commercial property
For those of you who are fashionista’s of Vivienne Westwood’s global empire I imagine that as a landlord one could only dream of the prestige of being one or more of her landlords (consider one’s image daaaahrling) and the unimaginative wealth of interest it would generate in the property investment read more...

Do I Need a Commercial Lease?

October 24th 2019 | commercial property
Although the risks of not having a commercial lease in place to formally document a tenant’s occupation is probably more of a risk from the landlord’s perspective there are a number of reasons why both a landlord and a tenant should enter into a formal lease: Certainty of terms – read more...

Brexit Stands as an Unviable Reason to Break a Commercial Lease

July 24th 2019 | commercial property
Landlords – heave a sigh of relief, tenants – look the other way. Following from my earlier article on this subject, the European Medicines Agency (“EMA”) has announced that it will not be appealing the High Court’s ruling which determined that Brexit would not frustrate its 25 year lease.  Instead, read more...

Informal Oral Contract Costs Construction Company Almost £7 Million

March 18th 2019 | commercial property
Informal oral contracts remain sadly commonplace despite any number of examples of them leading to costly disputes, in one case, a construction company that allowed another to use its name in tendering for jobs ended up losing almost £7 million. One of the company’s senior employees was an acquaintance of read more...
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