Recovering commercial rent in Cardiff
This is where we are based, and where we can be at a property the same day rather than planning around a journey. A good share of our Welsh work is small to mid-sized commercial units where the landlord knows the tenant personally and has already tried for months to sort it out privately.
We act for landlords, managing agents and surveyors across South Wales, most often in the city centre and Queen Street, Cardiff Bay, Newport Road and Llanishen 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
Cardiff arrears come from the city-centre retail and hospitality stock around Queen Street and the arcades, the office market through Cardiff Bay, Callaghan Square and Newport Road, and the trade and light industrial units at Leckwith, Llanishen and the Ocean Park and Ffordd Pengam corridor.
The practical detail matters here more than most: we know which estates trade early, which arcades are effectively licences rather than leases, and which units are likely to hold stock worth taking control of. For the wider region, Newport, Swansea, Bridgend and the Valleys, see our South Wales page.
What tends to matter locally
Welsh commercial leases run under the same law as English ones for CRAR purposes, but enforcement proceedings go through Cardiff rather than through an English registry, and clients from outside Wales are often surprised by that. We deal with the Cardiff court routinely.
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.
Being local, we can usually attend the same day rather than planning around a journey, but we will still say honestly when a visit is unlikely to achieve anything.
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 Cardiff 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.