Is your lease coming to an end? Are you aware if you leave anything behind the Landlord can charge you for its removal? We look at one case where this happened. We also look at the belief that the Government targets for zero rated carbon buildings are unattainable; can this be achieved?
Looking forward to the next 6 months London businesses are optimistic about their prospects so says the latest survey from the CBI/KPMG, but will Crossrail be a victim of the Government cuts? We look at both these aspects.
The St John’s Ambulance have issued a survey that identifies many organisation are ill prepared and do not have sufficient first aiders. Look at our story to understand the facts and follow their link to judge your own organisation’s readiness.
Finally, our Q and A looks at applying for consent to alter your premises. Do you understand all the aspects?
Tenants; be careful what you leave behind as it may cost you
Generally speaking, if the Landlord deems them to be of any value he may look to sell them and recover his costs from the proceeds. The resulting sale proceeds should be accounted back to you, the Tenant and he should have contacted you to let you know this is his intention. The reality is that he is likely to have tried to contact you anyway to effect removal and should then notify you as best he can, that he intends to sell them or otherwise dispose of them.
Hopefully, all of this should be set out in your lease; however if the lease is silent on the point then there are statutory rights allowing him to make a sale, and recover costs. The Landlord must be reasonably satisfied that you, the Tenant, actually own the items and that a sale is the most appropriate method of disposal. In many instances, Tenants leave items behind out of laziness because they are broken, making disposal problematic and therefore the statutory right to sale for the Landlord is of no real use.
The Landlord must make reasonable efforts to notify you of his intentions, hopefully following lease terms, but he should also assess their value; the less valuable they appear the more likely they are to have been abandoned (for example, part of the set for a TV series called Robot Wars was deemed abandoned and subsequently scrapped after 5 weeks of attempts by the landlord to contact the former tenant). In that case, there had been attempts to communicate their value to the Landlord via a Managing Agent, but none of this had reached him, and hence it was deemed reasonable that he could scrap the items.
The case does not however give carte blanche to Landlords to sell or dispose, but (former) Tenants need to be aware of either the lease terms or the Landlord’s statutory rights.
If in any doubt over what action you should take then call us first to discuss the matter.
Crossrail; a victim of Government cutbacks?
But its funding is always a popular talking point, with constant debate over proportionality between, and within, the public and private sectors, relative to the benefits that result, and with the announced Government cut backs, fresh questions have inevitably emerged about what can be shaved off the bill to safeguard the project. In a letter to Sadiq Khan, Shadow Transport Minister, the Coalition’s Transport Secretary Philip Hammond, commented last week that the Government was looking at ways to make savings as well as a “range of contingency options’’ much of which might become clear when the fate of capital projects is decided in the comprehensive spending review in the Autumn.
Mr Khan said, ’’The Government needs to be a lot more open with London’s business community and travelling public about their plans. If they are considering big changes to the scheme, such as fewer stations, reduced capacity, or major delays in delivering key parts of the network, then we deserve to know about it so we can consider fully the impact these cuts will have on the economy and on jobs, and on the overall value of the project.’’ With the Department of Transport being only responsible for a minority of the funding it is thought that the chances of the project losing out… and London..... are slim; although it is hard to imagine modifications not being made in some shape or form bearing in mind last week’s announcements over school building projects.
New Report says Government’s Zero Carbon Building targets are unattainable
The report was prepared by the British Property Federation, Law firm Taylor Wessing and communications firm Spada and found that the Government’s zero carbon targets for property were not realistic and that, in order to meet the UK National reduction targets by 2010,more regulation is needed to drive things forward; this means greater collaboration between Industry and Government.
Despite this however, it reported that the recession appeared not to have dampened enthusiasm towards sustainability and found that there was strong evidence of a move towards Green Agreements, especially the non-binding versions.
In summary, the key observations were:
• 73% of respondents felt that plans to make all new Commercial buildings zero carbon by 2019 are unrealistic.
• The ‘stick’ of regulation is the most likely way to move the agenda forward.
• 68% said that sustainability was either ‘very’ or ‘highly’ important to them.
• Despite over 70% saying that they had sustainability measures in place, only half said they set internal targets and only one third related to business dealings.
• Over 80% said that they involved Senior Management in the area, although around only 35% employ dedicated staff or consultants to address it day to day.
• 60% said they had direct experience in using green leases or MoUs, dramatically up from 46% when a similar survey was undertaken last year.
• Of the 40% who had not become involved in Green leases/MoUs, half of those said they would consider this in the future.
• Internal communication to staff and customers is not high, with comfortably below 50% of respondents failing to do this either ‘’quite well’’ or’’ very well’’.
• 72% of respondents do report on sustainability, but they observe that there is a plethora of benchmarking tools available with little consistency.
• Retrofitting existing space would be considered on grounds of operational efficiency and improved flexibility in use; there appeared limited concern about energy security.
• One third of respondents requested data on environmental performance during transactions; a tentative move towards the industry trying to measure green value.
TAP has prepared a brief Guidance Note on Energy Management, viewable on the TAP BLOG at www.tap-in.co.uk which introduces the procedural steps to consider when implementing a sustainability strategy.
London businesses optimistic about the next 6 months
Firms still see a number of concerns that may influence future decisions on whether to conduct business in the capital. 57% of business leaders surveyed thought the 50 pence tax rate will impact a company’s decision to stay in London in the short term, and in the longer term whether to stay in the UK. The conclusion from those surveyed is that 78% believe the cost of doing business in the capital is high and that 48% are concerned by the capital’s transport system. However 97% felt that the current transport projects such as Cross Rail and modernisation of the tube should be completed to increase the facilities and capacity of transport on offer.
Of those surveyed firms were looking to invest more over the next 6 months in recruitment, IT, equipment, plant and machinery and product innovation. The only area they didn’t expect to increase costs was in land and buildings. The authors of the report have summarised the situation; Nigel Bourne, Director of CBI London, said:
"There is a growing sense of optimism among London’s businesses, with firms more upbeat about the coming six months. Even though most companies rate the capital as a good or very good place to do business, the cost of operating a business in London, the level of taxation and the transport system are all seen as denting its ability to compete on the world stage.
After a second year in office, businesses think the Mayor is making a positive impact on people’s perception of the city, and on its transport network. But neither he nor the government should be complacent. We must continue investing in London’s vital infrastructure and ensure it can compete with other cities globally. Nurturing home-grown talent is also going to be important during the recovery."
Richard Reid, London Chairman of KPMG, said: "With over half of the capital’s businesses planning to expand and increase spending in the second half of this year it is clear that London will continue to be the driver of economic growth in the UK. The Government needs to continue to work with the private sector to ensure that much-needed investment projects such as Crossrail happen and that we don't slip behind other global centres.
London is now in competition with the fast-growing economies of the Far East, which devote more of their GDP to infrastructure investment than any other region in the world. How we approach the problems of an ageing transport network in London will determine our future attractiveness and competitiveness."
Does your organisation have sufficient first aiders?
On October 1st 2009 the Health & Safety Executive brought in new workplace regulations for workplace cover. It is a legal requirement to have sufficient first aiders in the workplace and following a recent survey carried out by St John’s Ambulance, 60% of people surveyed wouldn’t know what to do in an emergency.
As with many regulations there isn’t a simple answer to the question ‘How many first aiders do I need for my business?’ However, the helpful people at St John’s Ambulance have put a simple interactive guide on their website (www.sja.org.uk). This guide walks you through the requirement by asking you 3 straightforward questions about your environment, the company and you. From here the guide then identifies the number of first aiders your organisation requires; so for an office employing 5-25 people under the responsibility of someone who is familiar with health and safety and holds a recognised qualification such as IOSH or NEEBOSH would need to have 1 qualified first aider. However with this being a legal requirement and with each company being different we would recommend you undertake your own review of how many first aiders your company needs.
Alterations – How do we make an application to our Landlord?
As a Tenant you should always seek the guidance of the Lease which will stipulate the guiding principles on where consent is required for alterations.
1. The Lease will define the demise (ie the physical extent of your rented floor space). It is important to understand this point as the Landlord rarely allows you to alter anything OUTSIDE the demised area.
2. Some alterations will be allowed without consent. It can be the case that installation of demountable partitioning is allowed, or the placing of signage on a front door or in the lift lobby is permitted.
3. Refer to the ‘Guidelines for alterations’ or the ‘Occupier Guide’ policies. Many Landlord’s or property managers draft guidelines on how to approach applying for consent for alterations and these documents outline the measures a tenant needs to consider as part of their application such as out of hours working, ‘permits to work’ and so on.
The Landlord will want to see the practical issues covered, such as statutory approvals, planning permission and building regulations. Also have regard to housekeeping management, such as consideration to neighbouring properties, tenants or businesses, information to enable the issuing of permits, whether they are hot work permits or permits or permissions to work, or the need to comply with any sustainability or environmental policies that may be present.
Once this has been agreed the Landlord’s solicitors will issue a Licence to Alter. This document records the alterations and helps to identify what elements may form part of any dilapidations claim when the lease expires. (If the works are deemed to be improvements, they are likely to be disregarded at Rent Review.) Once this document has been agreed and signed by both parties then the works can proceed.
There may be other points to consider such as insuring the works or changes to the service charge apportionments should changes to the premises increase the floor space which we haven’t covered and if these are relevant to you then please call TAP on 0800 865 44 50 and we can guide you through any concerns you may have.
No comments:
Post a Comment