The property
A single storey industrial unit with a service yard in Crawley, West Sussex, at the end of its lease. The outgoing tenant had fitted the unit out for its own use, under a licence that required the alterations to be removed at the end of the term.
The brief
The landlord, a private property investment company, needed the tenant’s repairing and reinstatement obligations enforced, the unit put back into lettable condition, and a claim that would stand up to the tenant’s surveyor.
What we did
- Inspection and surveyInspections as the tenant stripped out, and a drone survey of the whole terrace roof, flown inside Gatwick Airport’s restricted airspace under a flight notice and with air traffic control clearance.
- Terminal scheduleA schedule under the Dilapidations Protocol covering repair, decoration, reinstatement of the alterations and the yard, with a Quantified Demand.
- Tested by tenderThe remedial works tendered to a shortlist of contractors, and each bid split into the items recoverable from the tenant and those the landlord would carry.
- NegotiationThe tenant’s Scott schedule answered item by item, loss of rent restored, and the claim settled by negotiation.
- Repaired and redecoratedThe repair and redecoration works let under JCT Minor Works 2016, administered by Avalon as contract administrator and principal designer through to final account.
The standards
The claim followed the RICS dilapidations professional standard and the Pre-Action Protocol for Claims for Damages in relation to the Physical State of Commercial Property, with damages tested against section 18(1) of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1927.
A claim priced by the market, not just by the surveyor.
The outcome
The landlord negotiated from tendered prices rather than estimates, and the same practice that prepared the claim put the unit back into lettable order.
Read more about our dilapidations and contract administration services.
