Recovering commercial rent in Chester
Chester is a small city with an unusually broad commercial base: a medieval retail core that trades on tourism, a substantial out-of-town office park, and a ring of industrial and trade property running out towards Sealand and Saltney. It also sits on the Welsh border, which matters more for enforcement than most landlords expect.
Retail and hospitality arrears come from the Rows and the streets around the Cross, where the two-tier frontages carry independent shops and restaurants on short leases. Office arrears come almost entirely from Chester Business Park south of the city, which is corporate stock let to financial and professional occupiers. Industrial and trade work sits at Sealand Road, Deva Business Park, Saltney and out towards Broughton.
The split decides whether an attendance is worth making. A Rows restaurant holds fit-out, stock and kitchen equipment. A suite on the Business Park usually holds nothing that belongs to the tenant, because the fit-out is the landlord’s and the equipment is leased.
What tends to matter locally
The border is the thing that catches people out. Saltney runs into Flintshire, and premises a mile or two apart can sit in different jurisdictions. CRAR itself is identical in England and Wales, so the remedy does not change, but residential letting in Wales has been on a separate statutory footing since the Renting Homes (Wales) Act 2016, and a mixed-use property on the Welsh side needs checking carefully before anyone assumes CRAR is available.
The second point is seasonal. A good deal of Chester retail earns disproportionately over the summer and at Christmas, so arrears built in February are often recoverable by trading rather than by enforcement. We will say so where it is true, because a tenant who can pay is worth more than a unit that is empty.
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.
Where an attendance is needed in Chester we plan it around the occupier rather than around our diary, and we say honestly beforehand whether the goods on site are likely to justify the visit.
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 Chester 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.