If you acquire a lease

If you acquire a lease

If you acquire a lease of business premises in the UK you may find that you have accepted a repairing liability. This means that you have to leave the property in better condition than it was at the start of the lease.

To avoid this, well advised business tenants are now documenting the condition of premises before they acquire a lease and ensuring that the lease limits their liability by reference to the Schedule of Condition. The reasoning behind this is that most business premises in the UK are let on Full Repairing and Insuring Leases. This means that the tenant is liable for all the repairs required to keep and put the premises in good condition, this includes those repairs, such as the replacement of a roof covering.

To avoid the liability of putting the premises into a better condition than they where at the start of the lease it is necessary to have a professionally prepared Schedule detailing the Condition of all the elements of the accommodation and for this Schedule to be attached and referred to in the lease documentation.

Remember Dilapidation Claims which can range into hundreds of thousands of pounds. Even on the smallest shop, claims can run into tens of thousands of pounds. The cost of preparing a Schedule at the commencement of the lease is thus just a fraction of the costs of repairs which the tenant would otherwise be liable.