Services for Tenants

Commercial leases include legal obligations that tenants must abide by, often referred to as Tenant Covenants. They usually include commitments to pay rent, insurance, business rates and service charges, which make up most of the occupational cost. However, leases also typically include other obligations and restrictions. These can restrict whether you’re allowed to alter a property, assign, or sublet and what condition it must be left in at the end of your term. Many leases will also include rent reviews during the course of the lease.

We have a wealth of expertise negotiating commercial lease terms, and we can also advise on a wide range of additional services including:

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  • We pride ourselves on going the extra mile for our clients, from finding the perfect property for your specific needs to making sure there are no unsuitable terms in your lease. By doing this, you can avoid significant future problems. Usually, negotiations focus on the length of the lease term and the rental amount, but a lease has many more complexities to it.

    We’ll take the time to find out what your exact requirements are for the property, and then negotiate the terms for you. These could include the ability to make alterations or to dispose of the property if you need to. We’ll also make sure that repairing and yielding up clauses are not overly excessive and that rent review requirements are fair and appropriate.

    We’re not solicitors and cannot advise on legal wording, but we regularly work alongside solicitors to ensure that the lease is drafted appropriately for your requirements. By doing this we make sure the lease terms are clear and accurate, which guards against the potential for misinterpretation and protects you from future issues.

    Creating and maintaining a good relationship between landlords and tenants is a priority, which is why we always look to reach a mutually beneficial agreement through constructive negotiation. This helps to avoid the time, risks and costs involved in third party referral, such as arbitration. However, we understand that this is not always possible, despite our best efforts. In the rare cases when this happens, we have a wealth of experience writing Expert Reports to submit to courts and tribunals, ensuring the best results for our clients.

  • One of our main areas of expertise is negotiating rent reviews and lease renewals. We have acted in this capacity for a wide range of tenants’ properties, including retail, industrial, medical units and office spaces.

    Getting the right advice for rent reviews and lease renewals at the right time can save you a very significant amount of money. That’s why we make sure our recommendations take full advantage of the market conditions at the time. This is especially relevant in Landlord & Tenant Act 1954 lease renewals, where the valuation date is in the future, and issues such as interim rent require careful consideration.

  • Aubrey Burn is a member of the Rating Surveyors Association, and has been a consultant of Alexander Reece Thomson, where he has led the Rating Department. This professional expertise puts us in the best position to advise you on business rates and how best to mitigate them.

    We understand that business rates are a substantial cost for tenants. They’re calculated by multiplying a “rateable value” by a percentage, which is sometimes known as the “business rates multiplier”. Unfortunately, it’s not possible to appeal against the multiplier. However, it is possible to appeal against the rateable value, which is intended to represent the estimated rental value of a property at a fixed valuation date.

    Having the right professional to appeal on your behalf is essential, because business rates can potentially increase (rather than decrease) as the result of an appeal. We have the experience and particular skills needed to secure reductions in rateable values, which can also include backdated savings. We’re proud of the work we’ve done in this area, having saved our clients hundreds of thousands of pounds in individual appeals.

  • Most commercial leases require tenants to keep properties in good repair and decorative condition. Tenants will often also have to return a property to its original configuration at the end of the term. If a tenant doesn’t comply with these requirements, they’re often required to pay the landlord for the cost of carrying out necessary works.

    Previously, this issue created tricky situations where a landlord intended to redevelop a building for a higher value use. There were cases where landlords unfairly expected the tenant to pay for works which would never be carried out otherwise, and which had not resulted in any financial loss.

    Due to this, Section 18(1) of the Landlord & Tenant Act 1927 was introduced. This caps the amount landlords can recover to purely the diminution in value sustained as a result of the breaches. Similar principles apply to other tenant obligations, such as reinstatement and redecoration.

    We’ve worked extensively in this area for over a decade. We have in some cases reduced multi-million pound claims against our clients down to virtually nothing.

    We work with some of the leading building surveyors and legal teams to make sure appropriate decisions are reached on behalf of our clients, without the additional time, cost and uncertainty of full court hearings.