Our Client owned a practice in Epsom which operated a surgery. Our Client was due to retire and was proposing to sell the ownership of the business to a colleague and wanted to terminate the Lease for their demise, which was in his name, early for his colleague to then agree a new lease directly with the Landlord.
The surgery occupied the first floor of a multi-occupied building and our Client approached his Landlord to surrender his lease early and requested that the Landlord grant his colleague, who would be taking over the business, a new lease.
The Landlord instructed a surveyor to prepare a Schedule of Dilapidations of the demise to allow for the commencement of negotiations to surrender of the existing Lease. Once the Landlord’s claim was received in the Schedule of Dilapidations our Client instructed us to review and assess the schedule which formed the Landlords claim.
The Schedule of Dilapidations had been prepared on the basis that the tenant was vacating the property and the demise was being yielded up to the Landlord. The claim included for the strip out of the demise, including the removal of all the surgery fittings, which the proposed owner of the business would need to retain to be able to continue to operate the surgery. The Schedule of Dilapidations did not reflect the fact the business was to remain operational and reinstatement of the tenant’s surgery fittings was not required or appropriate at this time.
We provided detailed advice to our Client on the validity of the claim and proposed a strategy to deal with it. We recommended negotiations be undertaken with the Landlord and his colleague taking on a new lease. These negotiations were to ensure a new lease could be granted and financial settlement reached between all parties for the dilapidations liabilities. This was to ensure consideration was given to many items of claim that were not relevant and did not reflect the proposed transfer of ownership of the surgery and the demise continuing to operate as a surgery.
We have extensive experience dealing with dilapidations claims both for landlords and tenants. Dilapidation claims are rarely straightforward so our experience enables us to provide our clients with clear bespoke advice on their liabilities and propose strategies to comply with legal protocols.
