Planning permission can add significant value to a development site. However, that value depends heavily on the scheme being capable of delivery, and that is something that planning permission does not establish.  Access is a good example. A planning authority may be satisfied that a proposed access works in highways and planning terms, but that…

For commercial tenants approaching lease expiry, staying put is increasingly a genuine alternative to relocation. There may be good reasons for it. Avoiding the cost and carbon associated with a move, retaining a location that works, and using refurbishment to create a substantially different workplace without changing address all makes sense. But there is a…

Granting an EVCP (Electric Vehicle Charging Point) lease can appear to be an easy commercial win. A specialist operator funds the infrastructure, the site becomes more attractive to occupiers, and the landlord secures an additional income stream with relatively little capital investment. On the surface, it looks like a straightforward way of future-proofing a commercial…

For most of the industry’s history, a commercial property transaction was shaped as much by geography as by law. Deals moved at the speed of the post, the availability of witnesses, and the diary of a surveyor who needed to visit in person before a lender would commit. Developers, fund managers, institutional investors and bridging…

For many parties involved in a commercial property transaction, exchange of contracts feels like the finish line. Months of negotiations, due diligence, financing discussions and legal drafting have finally produced a binding agreement. The uncertainty that characterised the earlier stages of the deal appears to have fallen away, and buyer and seller can begin to…

Earlier this year, we covered why the 2025 UK retail property recovery was contractual, not speculative, which was largely driven by rebased income, disciplined lease structures and assets that had already repriced through the cycle.   Six months on, the story has developed. What was a recovery is beginning to look like conviction, and the decisions…

Commercial landlords in England and Wales have been operating under considerable uncertainty about the future of energy efficiency requirements for some time. The current minimum standard, an EPC E rating, has been in place since 2018, but successive consultations have pointed toward a significantly higher threshold, leaving landlords and their advisers working toward targets that…

When a tenant approaches a commercial landlord with a request to sublet, the consent process can appear straightforward on the surface. Check the lease, instruct solicitors, issue a licence. The risks of getting it wrong, however, are anything but straightforward. A poorly assessed consent decision can erode rental tone across an estate, introduce operationally incompatible…

When a commercial lease approaches its end, the question of what a tenant leaves behind and what they take with them can become one of the most contested and financially significant issues in the entire landlord-tenant relationship. Reinstatement clauses sit at the heart of this question, yet they are frequently misunderstood, poorly drafted, or treated as an…

The commercial property market is facing a genuine reckoning. Office demand has fragmented in the wake of hybrid working. Retailers have restructured, surrendered space and in some cases disappeared entirely. Household names that once anchored buildings and business parks have downsized, entered CVAs or vacated without warning. The lesson of recent years is that covenant strength, that long-cherished proxy…