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Lease Advice
On grant of a new lease, or at lease renewal, or on assignment or variation to an existing lease, after negotiations are concluded and outline terms are agreed in principle, the agreement is put into the form of a legally binding document. At that stage, many surveyors leave everything to the lawyers, but that can do you disservice.
A paradox of the commercial property market, the drafting of leases is normally left to people that do not deal with the practical consequences of their choice of wording and phrasing. At the very least, one would think that those whose job is to deal with rent review would be consulted but that rarely happens. Instead, lines of demarcation are drawn. After heads of terms are agreed, the matter is handed over to the lawyers to deal with the documentation, whereupon further negotiation occurs, with advice to the client but not always liaising with the client's surveyor.
With respect, leaving lawyers to their own devices can be risky. A great deal of trust is placed by landlords and tenants on the assumption that lawyers must surely know what they are doing. Sometimes they do, but frequently they don't and the client is none the wiser: the first the client gets to hear of the inexperience is when the rent review practicalities from the surveyor's point of view differ from the client's expectations.
Leaving aside for one moment problems from inexperience and widespread use of precedents, in my opinion, the underlying issue is a failure to overcome the conflict between the subjective and the objective. The lawyer is acting for the client and naturally the client's interests are paramount. However, the principles of rent review are objective so the actual client's interests can be less important.
The world of rent review occupies an overlapping area of know-how between a commercial property surveyor and property lawyer. To be able to negotiate rent review properly, it is essential to have an in-depth knowledge and experience of business tenancy law and rental valuation in practice.
The wording of a document has repercussions. With a business tenancy, the consequences of inexperience can be horrendously expensive.
At future rent review, it is common to find an intention is lost because, before completing the lease, the lawyers did not agree the wording with surveyors.
To ensure your interests are well looked after, I liaise with your solicitors on drafting and approval of documentation. Even if you negotiated terms yourself or have another surveyor, it will pay to involve my services.
You may depend on wise reasoning and sound advice
I have my own computerised law library, containing thousands of judgments and unreported cases, with articles on strategy.
Frequently, I am asked to provide lawyers with advice on the drafting and approving of rent review guidelines in leases and documents.
To contact me, please email help@michaellever.co.uk or telephone 01531 631892
I look forward to helping you in some way.
Michael Lever
PS - For a good deal of free advice, please visit Research.