Property Consultant

Why use a Property Consultant when Moving Office?

The facts are that most people rent office space only a few times during an entire business career. Conversely, Landlords lease office space for a living – time and time again. Furthermore, in most cases they will instruct a consultant to advise them, help them market the office property and get a tenant to occupy the office space on the most favourable terms for them. So, on the face of things, the landlord seems to have an unfair advantage! The only way to balance this is to engage the services of your own property consultant that specialises in representing tenants.

A commercial property consultant's main functions are to find you the most suitable property and then negotiate the best financial terms on your behalf. Their role is likely to involve: identifying the right property for you, conducting viewings, advising on the suitability, providing cost analysis of preferred options, negotiating terms, liaising with solicitors, keeping you abreast with progress and monitoring the transaction until completion.

YOUR PROPERTY AGENT WILL WORK WITH YOU ON THE FOLLOWING:

Analyse & Define your Office Space Requirements

Your Consultant will be able to advise on your requirements with regards to timing, location, size, budget, lease length, type of building and office specification.

Property Search & Viewings

They will take your requirements and conduct an in-depth search to find out details of every possible office space that meet your parameters. A good property consultant will have access to all properties that are on the market (and even some that are not). They will provide you with details of all office properties that fall within the scope of your requirements. They will then arrange and accompany all viewings of your “long list” and be there to provide on-the-spot advice & answers.

Detailed Cost Analysis on Short List

Following the initial inspections they will work with you to select a “short list” and arrange further viewings on these office properties to assess the pro’s & con’s of each. Once the shortlist has been chosen your property consultant will make contact with the Landlord’s agent to determine what sort of deal could be done. Your property consultant will then provide detailed cost analysis on the preferred options (to include lease length, tenant’s break options, rent/terms, service charge provisions, business rates liability, rent free period, tenant improvement allowances, dilapidations and reinstatement obligations etc).

Negotiation

Options equals leverage. There may well be 1 property that you think suits you best, but the last thing you want is to commit everything to just one option – as doing so hands over the advantage to that property’s landlord. You and your Property Consultant should, ideally, identify 3 viable alternatives to help with your negotiation of achieving the best deal. Creating this “competition” will improve your negotiating position and create the opportunity of you achieving more advantageous concessions and incentives. Your Property Consultant will then undertake all negotiations with the respective Landlord(s) to secure the best possible terms on your behalf.

Once the terms have been negotiated and agreed in principle your Property Consultant will prepare a set of “heads of terms agreement” which is a summary of the agreement between the parties and is used to instruct solicitors to then produce the formal lease.

Getting the Deal Done

Your Property Consultant will work closely with your legal representatives in reviewing the lease documentation and help with any subsequent negotiations through to completion. They will also be on hand to provide you with regular briefings on the state of play and will monitor the transaction until completion of the deal.

Working with the right Property Consultant means that you will pay LESS for your office space.

Why use a Property Consultant?

• Taking on an office lease is a major commitment. Every £-pound saved on your property costs goes straight to your bottom line.
• It might be obvious but it needs saying; Landlords will always look for the highest possible rental levels for the longest possible guaranteed term. Conversely, Tenants are looking for the lowest rent possible with the greatest amount of flexibility in the lease.
• You must, therefore, use an experienced Property Consultant to secure negotiating leverage to ensure that the lease reflects your best interests.

It is a complete false economy to think that you can save money by not using a Property Consultant and trying to do it yourself. Consultancy fees are not large when considered against the total costs of a lease over the length of its term – and when compared with the costs of making a move to the wrong building, or even to the right building on the wrong terms, they are very small indeed.

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