The latest from Aqqord
& the world of property
Minimum Energy Efficiency Standards for Commercial Property
If you own or let commercial property in England and Wales, there’s a rule you can’t ignore: you generally can’t let a building that falls below a minimum energy efficiency rating. It’s called MEES (Minimum Energy Efficiency Standards) and it’s tied to the building’s EPC. It matters to tenants too, because the works needed to […]
Assignment and Underletting: Understanding the Alienation Clauses
A commercial lease can be a long commitment, and businesses change. You might outgrow the space, downsize, relocate, or sell up entirely. When that happens, the question is whether you can pass the lease on to someone else– covered by assignment, underletting, and alienation clauses. It’s a dry word for an important set of rights. […]
Forfeiture and the Section 146 Notice: How a Landlord Ends a Lease for Breach
Forfeiture and the section 146 notice are the tools landlords reach for when a tenant seriously breaches the lease: stops paying rent, or breaks an important covenant. Where a tenant defaults on rent and there’s a personal guarantee in place, the landlord may also look to the guarantor. It’s the right to bring the lease […]
Service Charges in Commercial Leases: What Tenants Actually Pay For
When you rent a unit in a building you share with other occupiers (a floor in an office block, a shop in a parade, a unit on an estate), the rent isn’t the whole story. On top of it sits the commercial lease service charge: your contribution to the cost of running and maintaining the […]
Schedule of Condition: Why Your Agent Will Push for One
If you’re taking on a commercial lease and your agent or surveyor starts talking about a schedule of condition, it’s worth listening. It’s one of the least glamorous documents in the whole process and one of the most useful, particularly if you’re a tenant. What Is A Schedule of Condition A schedule of condition is […]
Personal Guarantees on Commercial Leases: What You’re Committing To
When a company takes a commercial lease, the landlord sometimes wants more reassurance than the company alone provides — especially for young or newly formed businesses without much track record. This is where personal guarantees commercial leases are asked to include come into play. Sometimes this comes up as early as the heads of terms […]
Heads of Terms: What Should Be in Them and Why It Matters
Heads of terms for a commercial lease set out the key points of the deal before the legal drafting begins. It’s the commercial summary: the bones that the full lease then gets built around. It’s tempting to treat it as a formality and rush through it to get to the “real” paperwork. That’s a mistake. […]
Contracted-Out Leases: The Warning Notice and the Declaration
Sometimes a landlord doesn’t want a tenant to have the automatic right to renew at the end of the term. Maybe they’re planning to redevelop, or sell with vacant possession, or move in themselves. In those cases the landlord can grant a contracted-out lease from the renewal protections in the 1954 Act. It’s a perfectly […]
Rent Reviews: Open Market vs RPI vs CPI
On a lease of any length, the rent you agree at the start usually isn’t the rent you’ll pay throughout. Most leases include a commercial lease rent review: a point, often every three or five years, where the rent can be adjusted. How that adjustment is calculated is one of the most important commercial terms […]
Break Clauses: The Three Details That Make or Break Them
A break clause in a commercial lease gives either the landlord or tenant the right to end the lease early — but only if the right conditions are met. A break clause is one of the most valuable things a tenant can have in a commercial lease: the difference between being locked into a ten-year […]