Rent reviews are a two way street warns John Truslove

Businesses who fail to take professional advice when rent reviews come around could be losing out, property experts at John Truslove Chartered Surveyors and Valuers are warning.

Joint managing director Ian Parker warned that while rents on industrial and office premises have increased significantly over the years both landlords and tenants could be losing out.

“On the one hand, you may find landlords pushing for a rent increase that is over the odds for the location and current market, but equally you find landlords failing to take account of prevailing economic conditions when setting future rents,” he said.

He pointed out that if landlords failed to keep a weather eye on market rental levels, they could risk losing tenants by trying to play “catch up” in future years.

“It is far better to keep your rents in line with market levels, as this can help avoid very large increases,” he said.

In the case of tenants, he said that few would have the professional and market knowledge offered by qualified surveyors at John Truslove to assess the correct rent for a given property, whether it is retail, office or industrial.

“It is surprising how many business property occupiers don’t take professional advice when presented with a demand by the landlord to increase their rent.

“Acting for the landlord, we recently advised on a 34 per cent rental increase on a 10,000 sq ft unit in Worcestershire. The rental increase is wholly justified by market levels, but what was surprising is that the tenant did not take any professional advice for what one would assume is a significant cost to their business.

“This is so often the case. Equally, we at John Truslove are aware of a good number of cases where the rent increases are unjustifiable but the tenants have just accepted them,” he said.

He stressed that rents on commercial and industrial premises had increased significantly over the last few years due to lack of stock, but it was vital that tenants and landlords understood what is the market level for their sector.

John Truslove acts for both landlords and tenants on a strictly result based fee and can be contacted on 01527 584242 or by emailing ian@truslove.co.uk

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