Dilapidations and Landlord & Tenant matters
What are Dilapidations?
When a commercial Lease comes to an end, the tenant is usually obliged to remove any alterations he has made, carry out repairs and redecorate the property to comply with the Lease conditions before leaving.
Often, however, the tenant fails to do this, and so the landlord has to carry out the work in order to be able to re-let the property. This leaves the landlord out of pocket, and so he will want to recover the money so expended from the tenant in the form of a claim for damages - through a process which is known as Dilapidations.
Dilapidations is part of a legal procedure and the fundamental purpose of a schedule of dilapidations is to identify any breaches of Lease covenants.
Legal remedies
The legal remedy for such breaches of contract is often a claim for damages and therefore the schedule of dilapidations is usually prepared as a claim for the costs of the required remedial works.
A dilapidations claim is usually levied by a landlord where a tenant has failed to fulfil its obligations with regard to repairing a property – although, in rare instances, a tenant may serve such a schedule upon the landlord where the landlord has failed to abide by his own repairing covenants.
We offer a full range of services and advice in this area, which include the
following:
- report on the potential dilapidations liability of the tenant, for the tenant's benefit to aid with budget preparation prior to the end of a lease
- report on the potential dilapidations claim on behalf of a landlord prior to termination of a Lease
- assessment of the existing liability of a sitting tenant on behalf of the purchaser of a building
- preparation of interim schedules on behalf of a landlord
- defending against an interim schedule on behalf of a tenant
- the preparation of a terminal schedule on behalf of a landlord
- defending against a claim in a terminal schedule on behalf of a tenant.
How we can help
We can advise both Landlords and Tenants on all aspects of the Dilapidations process, including
undertaking property insepctions and preparing detailed Schedules of Dilapidaions.
Please contact us for more information and a free no obligation consultation.