Rent Review​s
Industry Insight
Industry Insight
Our interaction and longstanding involvement in the licensed and leisure property sector has presented us with detailed understanding of the inner workings, the tricks, and the strategies used against many lessees and tenants. We have put together a resource bank, bringing our knowledge to light, in an effort to inform the operators of our industry what actually goes on.
Our interaction and longstanding involvement in the licensed and leisure property sector has presented us with detailed understanding of the inner workings, the tricks, and the strategies used against many lessees and tenants. We have put together a resource bank, bringing our knowledge to light, in an effort to inform the operators of our industry what actually goes on.
Dilapidations & Schedules of Condition
James Slater & Co have noted specialisation over many years in Dilapidations issues, either providing schedules or bringing realism to over-enthusiastic Pubco-based schedules. James Slater & Co also prepare detailed Schedules of Condition together with a comprehensive photographic essay on behalf of potential purchasers and at lease renewal.
The devil is always in the detail and we are great details people. Often a Pubco/Brewer will issue a dilapidations schedule that appears to cost the earth, but it is, after all, only one man’s opinion and is not set in stone. We negotiate the reality of required works and the associated costs, especially on lease renewal and lease surrender.
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Dilapidations law is both complex and convoluted, based in the main on extensive Case Law guidance. Beware of ‘amateur’ advisors who ‘do a bit’. Do not be misled by non-professionally qualified advisors keen to “do a deal”. This is especially important in the vital lead-in period pre-lease renewal when a Terminal Schedule has been issued.
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Both the Law Society and the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors have established protocols that must be followed in issues of Dilapidations. A full and detailed understanding of these protocols is essential in the presentation of a client based case.
Very few new tenants realise that they can insist on an Initial Schedule of Condition at the start of a new lease. This is important as all modern leases require that the new tenant must “put and keep” in good and satisfactory repair and condition right from the very start of the lease. If you are taking over a building that still needs repair it is important to establish what is or is not in good repair. This then makes certain that you will keep the building in the condition which it was given to you and that you will maintain it in that condition, no better. You then do not have to improve the building to a better state than which it was at the start of the lease.