Hello and welcome to today’s property surveying blog post, in today’s topic, we are going to be looking into dilapidation surveys and who pays for dilapidations.
What are dilapidations?
Dilapidations refer to the claim that is made at the end of a commercial tenancy by a landlord to a tenant.
Who pays?
On most occasions, the lease would require the tenant to be responsible for the cost of the dilapidations and the procedures surrounding it i.e., surveyor’s cost for preparing the schedule of dilapidations.
This is not a given though and would depend entirely on the wording of the lease.
So, it is important to give your lease a full review, so you are fully aware of what cost you would be responsible for, alternatively, you can send your lease to us, where one of our surveyors here at Stokemont would be happy to give that a full review and advise you on this.
How does the Landlord make their claim?
The way that the landlord would make their claim for dilapidations is by instructing a qualified surveyor to carry out a Schedule of Dilapidations towards the end of the tenant’s term, usually being 56 days before the tenancy is due to expire.
During the schedule of dilapidations, this will see the Surveyor go and inspect the different elements of the property that the tenant would be responsible for.
If they let an area on the ground floor of a property, they would only be responsible for that area and so the surveyor who is conducting the schedule of dilapidations would not include areas such as the roof or the properties above, as the tenant would have no responsibility for those areas.
What will the claim be made up of?
The claim will be made of the total cost to make the area good again to an equal or better state than it was before the start of the tenancy.
This would not only be made up of the cost to repair and replace different aspects of the property but can also include removing any of the tenant’s fittings and systems that they may have installed during the course of their lease.
The landlord can even include loss of rent in their dilapidations claim but this would have to be proven for it to be included.
Certain aspects of tenants’ liability may be excluded from a dilapidations claim, such as if the landlord had already planned the development of an area to their property, they would not be able to make a claim on that area as the development would supersede the claim.
Section 18 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1927:
“if it is shown that the premises, in whatever state of repair they might be, would at or shortly after the termination of the tenancy have been pulled down, or such structural alterations made therein as would render valueless the repairs covered by the covenant or agreement”
After the claim has been made
Once the claim is made the tenant will have a set time period to respond which should be outlined clearly within the landlord’s claim, this is usually 56 days after the landlord has presented their quantified demands.
The tenant or their surveyor will then be able to respond to the claim disputing any areas that they feel are inflated or unfair.
At this point the Landlord can accept the changes made or more often what will happen is that the two parties will then meet and enter into discussions with one another to see if they can come to an agreeable sum for the dilapidations.
If an agreement can still not be reached, then the two parties would enter into some form of alternative dispute resolution and if this is unsuccessful the last option is to go through litigation.
Thank you for reading today’s blog post, if you have any further questions in regards to today’s topic or any of the other services that we offer here at Stokemont then please do not hesitate to get in touch today by either giving us a call or popping us over an email and one of our experienced surveyors will be happy to assist and advise.
