Aman Sahota-Dhatt, a principal associate in our commercial property team, is a specialist in handling corporate occupier headquarter moves.
After 20 years of operation, one of Higgs LLP’s major clients had outgrown its current premises and decided to make the move to larger space. Whilst the move itself was only to offices 10 miles away from their current location, the transaction was hugely important for the business who were transitioning from small, serviced offices with a rent of around £8,000 per annum, to a much larger space commanding a rent of over £200,000 per annum.
The site itself was challenging. The property formed part of a larger building with a wildly complex (and historic) legal title coupled with various planning issues and considerations. Due diligence of the site itself was, as can be imagined, an intricate process; however, negotiation of the lease was also extremely important, with careful consideration of the terms of the lease being integral to the deal.
Key issues such as ensuing that the tenant had been granted all the rights that they needed and that the service charge provisions had been adequately caveated to limit the tenant’s exposures were two of the key areas that required some careful amendment.
“were always responsive” and “give great advice and always help close matters down as soon as possible”.
Furthermore, additional drafting on environmental performance of the building had been stipulated in the lease. Recently, landlords are becoming increasingly aware of their contribution to sustainability particularly with regards to energy consumption and environmental performance. as such, an influx of specific drafting in leases obliging tenants to assist the landlord with its goals and management in this regard is making its way into the documentation on transactions of this nature. in this case, several provisions were included in the lease dealing with contributions and management responsibilities imposed on the tenant.
The commercial property team needed to review these terms to ensure that
- the tenant would not be inadvertently breaching covenants without knowing
- the tenant could in fact comply with some of the requirements and goals being asked of it; and
- any costs that were intended on being passed down to the tenant in this regard were extensively reviewed and amended to ensure that the tenant was not being caught out!
The transaction also required input from Higgs LLP’s corporate tax team on complex issues regarding the Tenant’s fit out, floor box contribution and the potential impact of the Construction Industry Scheme.
Whilst the transaction itself had a multitude of complications – the deal was successfully completed within the timeframe specified by the client.
