Commercial Surveys and Valuations

Commercial properties include a wide range of differing property types including office buildings, industrial premises and shops.

Commercial property valuations may be required for a number of purposes, including pre-purchase advice, asset valuation, taxation, and independent valuation. Our valuations will be carried out by an RICS Registered Value and will be undertaken in accordance with the RICS Appraisal and Valuation Manual.

We provide a personal, and flexible service of detailed and specialist advice, in an economic and consistent manner.

Provision of pre-purchase surveys of all types of commercial buildings, office, industrial and retail. This service can often be undertaken in conjunction with the valuation of the premises for private purposes.

Whatever the rationale for requiring a valuation of commercial property, The Harrower Partnership Chartered Surveyors can provide a valuation or survey report to suit your purposes

The valuations of business premises are very specialist indeed and only a Chartered Surveyor who specialises in business property valuations should be commissioned.

Business properties are trading businesses / operational entities such as hotels, guesthouses, restaurants, public houses, cafes, shops, petrol stations, vehicle repair workshops, nursing homes and residential homes etc which must be valued, in accordance with the RICS Red Book Guidelines based on a profits appraisal of the business. It is therefore necessary for the Chartered Surveyor to review at least three years’ trading profit and loss accounts and other relevant financial trading information and will also consider the future potential of the business. The Valuer will then build up an appraisal of the value of the business by considering the adjusted net profit (EBITDA - Earnings Before Interest, Taxation, Depreciation and Amortisation), thereby valuing the business using a more accurate net property, to which an appropriate capitalisation rate is applied.

Sarah Harrower has been undertaken valuations of a wide range of business valuations (from small independent trading shops/cafes through to large portfolios of nursing /care homes for public quoted companies) for over over 20 years, covering not only the south-west but extensively over the whole of the country. Sarah has spent over 12 years in senior consultant roles with two of the largest and highly respected national firms of business valuers.

Did you know that If you are taking a lease on a commercial/business property, under the lease you may be liable for full repairing and insuring terms. Full repairing terms means that you will be responsible as the tenant for “putting and keeping the property (the whole of the structure of the building) in good repair”, even if the previous tenant has failed to maintain the property in a good condition. This could prove very expensive.

Prior to entering into a new lease or an assignment of an existing lease, it is always recommended to obtain a detailed Schedule of Condition on the building prepared by a Chartered Surveyor specialising in this type of work. Without this document you may be exposed to significant financial costs if there were serious defects apparent to the property at the outset of the lease which the landlord may require you to make good at the end of the lease.

By having a Schedule of Condition prepared at the outset, you are thereby clearly recording the condition of the property and your limit of liability for maintenance.

Schedules of Dilapidations often be commissioned by landlords and are prepared often at the end of the lease, in order to record the condition of the property when the lease comes to an end or should you decide to leave the property. It will clearly set out the condition of the property and the extent of the tenant’s liability for repair when a tenant vacates.

Sometimes during the term of the lease, a it will be necessary to record the condition of a property. This is called an Interim Schedule of Dilapidations. It will set out the defects and condition of a property at a particular point in time. It is often used where either a tenant has failed to maintain the property or, where a landlord has failed to maintain the property where the landlord is responsible for repairs.

Whatever the rationale for requiring a Schedule of Condition or Schedule of Dilapidations on a property, The Harrower Partnership Chartered Surveyors can provide a suitable report to suit your purposes.

At the end of your lease there can still be liabilities to settle rather than simply walking away. These can be due to breaches of the terms of the lease, most commonly those relating to repairs.

The continued improvement in the property market has awakened more cases of dilapidation claims leading to consideration to the cap on the tenant’s liability. That relates to the impact on the value of the landlord’s interest after the lease ends.

Valuations, known as Section 18 valuations are required. They look at two elements. The first is the value had the tenant been in compliance with the repairing obligations. The second is the value of the property reflecting the tenant’s alleged failure to repair. At one time the step of last resort on a dilapidations claim, today under the Dilapidations Protocol these valuations are required at an early stage in proceedings.

The difference between the two could be lower than the cost of carrying out the works and thus limits the tenant’s liability.

Consideration of these valuations requires a surveyor with market knowledge and experience in landlord & tenant transactions.

Chartered Surveyors,