If you are a tenant and you are nearing the end of your lease, your landlord may have served a schedule of dilapidations on you. This can often come as a surprise to a tenant and the value of many claims can come as a nasty shock. Whilst any dilapidations claim may be unexpected and unwelcome, there are steps tenants can take to deal with such claims which will be of benefit to them.
It is important not to ignore a dilapidations claim but to be proactive in dealing with it. There are legal protocols that require you to respond to a dilapidations claim served on you. Therefore, to put yourself in a good position, it is important to seek early professional advice on how to deal with and respond to the claim set out in the schedule of dilapidations.
Surveyors prepare schedule of dilapidations on behalf of the landlord and those claims are based upon the information and documentation the landlord would have given their surveyor. There are occasions when the landlord’s surveyor has not been provided with all the necessary documentation by his client. It is therefore important that tenants instruct their own surveyor to assess and review the schedule of dilapidations and provide advice on the scope, quantum and value of the claim. This review will set out those elements of the schedule of dilapidations that the tenant’s surveyor agrees with and those that they dispute.
A surveyor acting for the tenant may agree with elements of the claim in principle but dispute the quantities of the works and or the cost the landlord’s surveyor has included in his claim. Equally the tenant’s surveyor may disagree with items included in the claim and be able to put forward arguments in accordance with dilapidations practices and protocols to have those elements removed from the claim.
Dilapidations claims are rarely straightforward. At Tim Greenwood and Associates we have the experience to be able to review a schedule of dilapidations and provide tenants with advice. We are able to negotiate dilapidations claims with the landlord’s surveyors and settle the claims for our Clients.
