Recovering commercial rent in Birmingham
The Jewellery Quarter and Digbeth are full of small workshop and studio units on short leases, where a landlord is often dealing with a single tenant on a few hundred pounds a month. Those are exactly the cases where the seven days' rent minimum under section 77(3) needs checking before anything starts.
We act for landlords, managing agents and surveyors across the West Midlands, most often in Colmore Row and the business district, Digbeth, the Jewellery Quarter and Brindleyplace and the surrounding commercial areas. The procedure is the same wherever the property is, but what actually works on the ground is not, and it is worth understanding the difference before instructing anybody.
Where the work is
Birmingham instructions divide fairly cleanly. Office and professional arrears come from Colmore Row, Brindleyplace and the Jewellery Quarter, where a great deal of the stock is small suites in converted buildings. Retail and hospitality arrears come from the Bullring surrounds, Digbeth and the high streets out through Moseley and Kings Heath. Industrial and trade arrears come from Aston, Tyseley, Nechells and the Small Heath corridor.
That distinction decides whether CRAR is worth pursuing to an attendance. A Tyseley unit carrying stock, plant and vehicles is a genuinely strong position. A two-room suite in the Jewellery Quarter where the furniture belongs to the landlord and the equipment is leased may hold almost nothing that can lawfully be taken into control. We will tell you which you have before you pay for anything.
What tends to matter locally
A great deal of Birmingham industrial stock sits on estates with shared yards and access. Taking control of goods on a shared site needs the lease and the demised area read carefully first, because what belongs to the tenant and what belongs to the estate is not always obvious on the ground.
How quickly we can be there
We aim to be with you within two hours, though being straight about it, that is rarely what decides the outcome: the compliance stage runs from the office, and the tenant first gets a written Notice of Enforcement with fourteen clear days to run before anybody attends. Most commercial arrears are settled inside that period without an attendance at all.
Birmingham is a straightforward run for us and we attend regularly, but we would still rather say honestly that a visit is unlikely to achieve anything than take the fee for making one.
The statutory fees
Under the Taking Control of Goods (Fees) Regulations 2014 the fees are fixed by statute: a £79 compliance fee when the Notice of Enforcement is issued, and a further £247 plus 7.5% of anything above £1,900 if an enforcement visit becomes necessary, with the full statutory scale set out in full separately.
Those figures are fixed by regulation, not by us, and they are the same in Birmingham as anywhere else in England and Wales.
Before you instruct us
Two things decide whether CRAR can be used at all:
- The lease must be a commercial one, in writing, with no part of the property let as a dwelling.
- At least seven days' rent must be outstanding, net of VAT, interest and any deduction the tenant could properly claim, which is the statutory minimum under section 77(3) of the Tribunals, Courts and Enforcement Act 2007.
If both hold, we can usually have a Notice of Enforcement out the same working day we are instructed.