We recently advised a tenant who was renting an office building in Regent Court, Leicester. They were served with a dilapidations claim by their landlord at a cost of £483,000. By providing a building surveyor and valuer, we were able to help the tenant settle at £115,000, saving our client £368,000!
Here are the full details of the claim:
Property: A listed detached office building in Leicester City Centre
Landlord’s (Cost of Works) Claim by Building Surveyor: £483,000
Dilapsolutions (Cost of Works) Response by Building Surveyor: £275,000 (Building Surveyor seeking to reflect reasonably assumed supersession if converted to residential, or instead upgraded to modern offices).
Likely Settlement Range: The above opposing figures between Building Surveyors ordinarily set the parameters of the eventual settlement sum. This is the case in all dilapidations negotiations if the Section 18/Diminution in Value (DV) defence is not robustly and expertly employed by the Tenant.
As no dilapidations consultants other than Dilapsolutions employ Valuers as well as Building Surveyors, the Tenant has to first know and appreciate the significance of the DV defence, and then know where to source it (at an additional fee).
Dilapsolutions Diminution in Value Assessment by Valuer: £115,000
Agreed Settlement: £115,000
Dilapsolutions’ unique and automatic provision of both the Building Surveyor and Valuer, ensures:
- Significantly lower settlement than with other dilapidations consultancies
- No hassle of having to source a specialist (Diminution) Valuer elsewhere (if you even know you need one)
- No additional fee for the valuer (being included in the Dilapsolutions fee basis)
We can't stress enough how important it is to use the expertise of both types of surveyors when faced with a dilapidations claim.
If you're a commercial property or leisure tenant and worried about losing out with dilapidations, then please contact paul@dilapsolutions.com for a free no obligation discussion and see what we can achieve for you.
About the author
Paul heads up a wide network of both Building and Valuation surveyors based across the UK and Ireland. He has more than 25 years of experience as a Chartered Surveyor and 20 years as a Chartered Arbitrator.
Dilapsolutions
Chartered Surveyors
We are the only dilapidations consultancy in the UK & Ireland that provides both Chartered Building and Valuation Surveyors, ensuring the best results for our clients.