commercial estate agents - tenants fees

juehankie

soRRY if in posted in wrong area....

is it right for proposing tenants to have paid the estate agents fees for a commercial lease...?

this seems strange ...i have to pay them £350 FOR an application form to start a commercial lease on a shop - is this the norm? thought the landlord was liable for costs...not me.

for the record they are very unprofessional so far. they deal mainly with private rentals. they dont seem to have a clue about the commercial side.

are they supposed to be chartered surveyors if sorting commercial leases? thanks

N79

A commercial lease is simply one which falls under the LL and T act 1956. There is no need for them to be chartered surveyors (although greater levels of qualification and professionalism would be normal for large business tenancies).

As for fees, these can be split anyway between LL and T so I don't see anything particularly unusual there.

Remember that as this is a commercial lease you will have repairing obligations so make sure that you care happy with the repairing clauses and the state of the property when you sign. Get a surveyor to do a survey for you if you are in any doubt.

juehankie

N79 wrote: »

A commercial lease is simply one which falls under the LL and T act 1956. There is no need for them to be chartered surveyors (although greater levels of qualification and professionalism would be normal for large business tenancies).

As for fees, these can be split anyway between LL and T so I don't see anything particularly unusual there.

Remember that as this is a commercial lease you will have repairing obligations so make sure that you care happy with the repairing clauses and the state of the property when you sign. Get a surveyor to do a survey for you if you are in any doubt.

yes thanks for that. its not our first venture into commercial lease, but its why i question the fees - we never paid for commercial lease estate agent fees -and no other round here charge, i can understand under a residential lease, but baffles me why im paying a holding fee and application fee for commercial lease - which wil be a totally different lease than a AST. over 7 years.

JQ.

No it's not normal and I've never come across it. It creates an immediate conflict of interest if the tenant is paying the Landlord's agents fees.

Sounds like they're out of their depth. Tell them to get stuffed, commercial landlords are desperate for tenants in the current market and putting up barriers such as application fees is idiotic.

and it's the 1954 act.

RabbitMad

One assumes that its because they want to ensure any prospective tenants aren't time wasters. If it is in a decent location and the LL will have no trouble letting it then they can use an agent that charges these fees. If it was in a row of empty properties then I would have thought the LL would be going out of their way to encourage new tenants.

Are you letting it as is or is your application dependant upon a change of use being accepted by the planning department. If its the later then this could also explain it, the LL won't want to hold the property for you and turn down any other possible tenants but you wouldn't want to spend money on PP if the LL could let to others as soon as its granted.

juehankie

RabbitMad wrote: »

One assumes that its because they want to ensure any prospective tenants aren't time wasters. If it is in a decent location and the LL will have no trouble letting it then they can use an agent that charges these fees. If it was in a row of empty properties then I would have thought the LL would be going out of their way to encourage new tenants.

Are you letting it as is or is your application dependant upon a change of use being accepted by the planning department. If its the later then this could also explain it, the LL won't want to hold the property for you and turn down any other possible tenants but you wouldn't want to spend money on PP if the LL could let to others as soon as its granted.

i agree the holding fee is a good idea - its the application fee i am against - its not a AST, its for terms over 10 years and the application fee is for the estate agent to draft up a AST for under 7 yrs which they clearly arnt = as LL is using a solicitor. I am awaiting PP for change of use. and am £1000 out of pocket so certainly aint lookin to waste LL's time...no1 else charges for tenant to show interest in commercial property - do they have right? even solicitor is strugglling to know the answer...:T

juehankie

for the record - since found out they are not estate agents - just letting agents - and under a different catagory.

they have offered the holding fee back, (£100) and even though i didnt fill in the application fee (but did hand over the £250) as i was awaiting confirmation a toilet would be added. this toilet will not be added, they are refusing to return app fee as they quote " have spent considerable time making phone calls and emails on the matter"

theartfullodger

Try posting in the Commercial bit of Landlordzone .. see

http://www.landlordzone.co.uk/forums/forumdisplay.php?8-Commercial-Property-Questions

juehankie

took them court and got all fees refunded in full:beer: