Often moving premises can be expensive for businesses and as a business owner, you will not wish to incur any unnecessary costs. You may consider entering into the Commercial Lease without taking any legal advice. However, there are several enquiries about a Property, which you should make before taking on the Property.
Usually, Commercial Leases are drafted in a Landlord friendly manner and therefore, it is important to seek legal advice in order to correctly understand the provisions and ensure that there are no problematic clauses. It is also important as a Tenant to ensure that you have the correct provisions included. As well as the lease itself, the Land Registry Title needs to be adequately confirmed to ensure that the Landlord does in fact own the Property and if there is a Legal Charge, the lender’s consent to the lease will need to be obtained. The covenants will need to be reviewed, particularly in relation to use of the Property, to ensure that there are no existing breaches. The EPC must be legally compliant and above an ‘E’ rating, otherwise it is not fit for occupation. There should be an Asbestos report for a Commercial Property, unless it was built after the year 2000. These are just a few of the matters, which need to be checked.
Legal advice on these matters does not need to be expensive. At Hindle Campbell Law, we offer two different fixed cost packages to review a Commercial Lease. The first package is at a lower fixed cost, to advise you on the terms of the lease, any risks, the provisions which you may not understand and to also provide you with any suggested amendments. This does not include liaising with the Landlord’s Solicitor, Land Registry Registration or submission of any Stamp Duty, which may be payable on the Commercial lease. Although we would of course inform you as to whether the lease does require a Stamp Duty submission or Registration. You are able to upgrade to the second package following the report, if you would like some further assistance.
The second package is a full service, which includes the report and all of the above, but also includes negotiating and liaising with the Landlord’s Solicitor, making amendments, raising enquiries on the title and other matters aforementioned and submitting Stamp Duty and Registrations, where required.
If you would like to find out more or make an enquiry, please call our Head of Department, Emily Walker on 0191 296 1777 for a no obligation consultation.