All posts tagged "2025"
“…perhaps the boldest intervention in leasing practice in a generation.”
Jul 2025 – It’s rare for me to include an article on RRM written by someone else but I think the following is excellent. So, by kind permission of the author, Tom Pope of Lightlease: “The government’s announcement this week to ban upward-only rent reviews (UORRs) in commercial leases across England and Wales is perhaps […]
A conflict of interest issue
Oct 2025. Here’s a conflict of interest issue. Surveyor A works for a firm of surveyors. Firm is instructed to do rent reviews for a multiple retailer. Directive nil increase. A gets to work and uses every trick in the book to achieve the client’s objective. I am instructed to act for a landlord whose […]
Bad bargain
May 2025 – Currently, I am acting for the landlord of a property whose upward-only review is to the greater of the market rent and uncapped index-linked. The dispute procedure is an independent expert. My client is not the original landlord, he bought the property at auction, but the tenant is the original tenant. The […]
Brent Cross Shopping Centre
Jun 2025 – News that Hammerson have bought Standard Life’s (Abrdn) 95% interest in the Brent Cross Shopping Centre in NW London and are now working on buying from another a further 3% interest so as to own 100%, led me to read about the Centre on Wikipedia. I know a lot of about BCSC […]
Buy to Let
Jun 2025 – Key Flats was the public name of the London and County Freehold and Leasehold Properties Company Ltd, a residential property landlord, incorporated in June 1909 whose assets then valued at circa £300,000 and which by 1945 had grown to £10,000,000. It was 1945 because I have a booklet from then titled “Where […]
Creepy?
Jul 2025 – Creepy? When you stop to think about it, the RICS is like an episode of Dr Who where an alien beast has a hold over humans that have to do its bidding. Over 150 years ago, a few surveyors got together to decide their standards were superior to everyone else at the […]
Customer Service
Jun 2025 – Complain… is not something I do very often. Mostly, there’s nothing much to complain about. Specialising in rent review enables considering holistically, not only from the client’s perspective. There are at least two sides to a story. So when I complain occasionally, I always include some suggestions for what can be done […]
Director – legal status or pretentious title for an over-rated position?
Mar 2025 – A director (according to Practical Law) is “a person elected by the members of a company or otherwise appointed to superintend the management of the company’s affairs. Although company directors are not strictly speaking trustees, they are in a closely analogous position because of the fiduciary duties they typically owe to the […]
Enjoying the heat wave?
Jun 2025 – I am, so much so that since the start of the year I’ve worn 4 layers of clothing on my upper body, including one thermal layer. Most people (including my wife) think I’m mad. Perhaps. A few years ago, we replaced all the original double glazing with triple glazing acoustic one-way glass […]
Independent Expert – getting your money’s worth
Aug 2025. In my experience, RICS-appointed Independent Experts fall in one of two categories. (1) Conscientious – by which I mean the IE will measure the premises and calculate areas regardless of what the parties might’ve agreed, investigate, research and test evidence for accuracy with the person(s) involved and not merely rely on pro-forma possibly […]
Independent Expert Determination on Rent Review
Jun 2025 – On referral, win most, lose a few; fair enough when the third party is someone who knows what he/she is talking about. But it irks when someone doesn’t. One such today. For no apparent reason, the RICS appointment of an IE was, according to the surveyor’s website, an arbitrator and mediator. As […]
Non-Structural Alterations
May 2025 – For pre-contract enquiries, nowadays known as Commercial Property Standard Enquiries, “CPSE” for short, any temptation to answer most with ‘no’, or ‘not known’, or ‘not aware of’, is bound to be a waste of time. The person enquiring is sure to query anything that should be answered more fully. The information about the […]
Open market rent
Jul 2025 Sometimes I tell landlord-clients that, despite the rent review to open market rent, it’s unlikely they’ll get it. Instead, they’ll get a rent pro rata that another unrelated landlord got for a different property. It’s a methodology that compares each rent review with what rent someone else has agreed, so that each subsequent […]
Outside LTA54 and upward/downward rent review
Jul 2025 – Although Bill 2025 applies to rent reviews in leases outside the Landlord and Tenant Act 1954, more leases granted outside LTA54 is suggested as a likely consequence of upward/downward rent review. The only times a lease can be granted outside LTA54 is on a new letting, or by agreement with an existing […]
Rack rent, open market rent, and fairs
Jul 2025 – For continuing professional development, Ii was reading about an Act of June 1657 “Annoyance by Buildings.; Fines for Houses built on new Foundations, within ten miles of the Walls of London, since the 25 of March, 1620” (for the preventing the multiplicity of Buildings in and about the Suburbs of London, and […]
Research reports
Jun 2025 – Hardly a week goes by when yet another report is published on some aspect of the market, trends, and so on. Sometimes a client will provide me with a report published by a trade organisation, or a survey of comments by local businesses, and such like, regarding the state of the market […]
Retail ambassadors
July 2025. I have just found out that a well-known firm of surveyors has re-hired someone whose reputation is awful. I doubt I am the only one who has been on the receiving end of his nastiness and, so I am told, not the only one who has expressed concern about the re-hiring. When a […]
Shop Comparable Evidence Service
Aug 2025. On LinkedIn i posted this disruptive idea. For sourcing comparable evidence, there are many sources amongst which Costar considers itself a leader. However, C is pricey because, as I understand, this may be wrong, one cannot limit a subscription to a particular type of property or location. I have a massive database of […]
Shop Comparable Evidence Service – feedback 1
Aug 2025. According to LinkedIn, the analysis for response so far is 42% London area, and companies including CBRE, Savills, RICS. Interestingly, the RICS is taking an interest. Costar’s sub is at least £6000 (ex VAT) [subject to any discount for volume, I don’t know] per user, with each user monitored via log-in ID and […]
Shop Comparable Evidence Service – feedback 2
Aug 2025 – I’ve been checking Costar UK figures and claims. I daresay someone from C will correct if this is wrong. C’s accounts for y/e 2023, turnover £53,948,605. According to C’s promotion on YouTube it has 9500 agents. I doubt there are 9500 agents in UK. I would think that what C means by […]
Shop Comparable Evidence Service – feedback 4
My website developer, having designed to my specification an accelerated search filter for my Law Library site, we are adapting it for the Comparable Evidence site. So I’ve scrapped my considering limiting the CE site to London. Until the filter is up and running, i won’t be adding any more data for comments on presentation. […]
Shop Comparable Evidence Service – feedback 3
Aug 2025. I’ve registered the domain: comparableevidence.com To begin with, I’ve asked my site developer to launch a site modelled on the appearance and layout of my private access sites. The appearance isn’t trendy as more important it’s designed for users. I have a global search which doesn’t require match search terms that the user […]
Shop Comparable Evidence Service – update 5
Sep 2025. Comparable Evidence site update. I don’t know how others do their websites – unless I’m told – but I’ve always done the look and written all content for mine. My first site used NetObjects Fusion until a developer told me it used proprietory code so if anything went wrong then I’d have to […]
Shop Comparable Evidence Service – update 6
Nov 2025 Shop Property Comparable evidence website. Thank you again to the >2000 (on LinkedIn) that expressed interested in my idea. So I am sorry to disappoint, but I am not going to pursue the idea, as I envisaged. Instead, I shall provide all the information free of charge – no payment, no log-in, no […]
Shop Investment – a lost cause?
Oct 2025 – I have said this before, and I’ll say it again, not in the same words, there are a heck of a lot of private investors that have no idea what they’re letting themselves in for when they buy shop property investments. Reality hits home on renewal of the lease. The cushion, of […]
Shop investment: direct or indirect?
Aug 2025. Shop investment: direct or indirect? Direct is owning the property, indirect is a shareholder. Which is better depends upon judicious choice. For direct ownership, cue is best taken from institutional investors. Pension funds have a longer time horizon. They do not pay 20 YP (5%) for 10 YP (10%) rack-rented investments. They do […]
Statement of Agreed Facts and Comparable Evidence
Sep 2025. On referral and in the process of agreeing a Statement of Agreed Facts, it appears – in my experience – to be taken for granted that the SOAF will contain proforma of so-called comparable evidence even if neither party’s surveyor has had any involvement with the evidence premises. And not only reliance on […]
Statutory Interpretation
Jun 2025 – In Darwall and another v Dartmoor National park authority 2025, a ruling by the Supreme Court about the public’s right to camp overnight on Dartmoor is interesting comment about statutory interpretation, following on from Pepper (Inspector of Taxes) v Hart 1992. The normal principles of statutory interpretation are to ascertain the meaning […]
Tenants v Landlords
May 2025 – A silent war is raging between tenants and landlords. This commercial purpose of a rent review, according to British Gas Corporation v Universities Superannuation Scheme (1987), and Equity & Law Life Assurance Society plc v Bodfield (1987), is to keep the rent in line with current property values having regard to the […]
The River Island Saga
Aug 2025. The River Island saga is a stark reminder of the risk run when large landlords relax their investment policies that they apply to small businesses. Small businesses that are incorporated are normally expected to provide a personal guarantor when leasing premises, yet somehow the same strict approach is not required of multiple retailers. […]
Up in arms!
Jul 2025 – Inevitably, the powerful landlord lobby – institutional investors, pension funds, insurance companies, REITS, quoted and major property companies, their advisers, and likely thousands of anonymous private investors – are concerned about the proposal to ban upward only rent reviews and especially the lack of consultation. But, some 30 years ago, when the […]
What’s the catch?
Jun 2025 – In July 2003, Allsop auction, Lot 34, Mr X bought a shop investment 52/54 High Street, Hucknall, Nottinghamshire. An attractive prominent building let to Boots at £28,250 pa, he paid £610,000. The seller, Golfrate, had served notice for the March 2003 review proposing £43,000 pax. Something I advise landlords when buying at […]