Commercial Premises

Taking a smarter approach to your commercial premises can realise significant additional revenue or reduce overheads - benefits that are more important than ever given increasing pressure to demonstrate value-for-money.

We know from experience that many RPs – as either the landlord or as the tenant – have opportunities to save money or generate income which they simply don’t realise, and our team has taken a leading role in helping our clients identify and maximise these benefits, implementing solutions which have saved clients six figure sums.

Are you a tenant feeling that your premises are over-rented or your lease is too inflexible for your changing needs? Are you a landlord concerned that tenant leases may expire and leave you high and dry with a rental void and primary liability for business rates? Do you simply want to consolidate your business needs and reduce your overheads by exiting a lease, buying or selling a property, or reducing the risk of losing good tenants?

Recent matters

• Advising RP clients on the review of commercial leases. In one matter we ‘sold’ an unwanted break clause back to the landlord raising >£200,000 for our client, and in another case we identified and implemented a lease re-gear opportunity, securing a rent-free benefit for the client of £100k.
• Advising a Manchester-based RP on a lease re-gear of its head office building. We negotiated a reduction in the extent of repairing obligations, capped the service charge liabilities and secured a rent-free period worth £125k. The unusual nature of the building in this matter, which would have proved difficult to let if our client had not renewed – this gave us leverage to negotiate preferential terms.
• Advising a Borough Council on the sale of vacant town centre land – a deal which was critical in unlocking a larger site for development. Without our client’s land, the development project could not proceed. The deal also attracted significant publicity and political pressure. We balanced the commercial and political imperatives to ensure the best and timely outcome.
• Advising a housing group subsidiary on the Heads of Terms on their office premises lease, identifying where the lease could cause our client future issues. The proposed lease was a full repairing and insuring lease which, given the term and property condition, was an onerous obligation. We negotiated a ‘schedule of condition’ for the client with a view to limiting their repairing obligations, which will secure significant dilapidation cost savings at the end of the lease.