Blog

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…

By the middle of July 2026, the UK had already lived through three official heatwaves this summer. Norfolk recorded 37.7 degrees in June, London touched 35 in a fresh spell in July, and the country had by that point seen more days above 30 degrees than the whole of 1976. It was also the first…

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…

Construction disputes usually present as arguments about delay, defective work or payment. Look behind many of them, though, and the real cause can often be traced back to something that was never properly resolved before the contract was signed. A specification didn’t match the drawings, or a programme assumed something the contract didn’t actually provide…

The sale of leasehold property can become significantly more complicated where completion depends upon a landlord consenting to the sale. In Mulberry Homes (Hazel Grove) Ltd v Scoto Ltd, the High Court considered how that requirement interacts with the contractual provisions governing completion and rescission contained in the Standard Commercial Property Conditions. The court was…

The Construction Industry Scheme  (CIS) has long been a feature of the tax landscape for those working in and around the built environment, but it has rarely troubled conventional real estate finance arrangements. That position was tested sharply in May 2026. A change to HMRC’s internal guidance, followed swiftly by a further revision in June,…