Recovering commercial rent in Derby
Derby is an engineering city before it is anything else, and most commercial arrears we see here involve light industrial or workshop units rather than shops. The tenants tend to be established businesses with real assets, which changes what recovery looks like.
We act for landlords, managing agents and surveyors across Derbyshire and the East Midlands, most often in the Cathedral Quarter, Pride Park, Raynesway and Chaddesden 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
Derby arrears cluster around Pride Park, where the office and business-park stock sits, and the Ascot Drive and Sinfin industrial corridor, which carries engineering, trade and automotive supply. Retail and hospitality work comes from the city centre and the Derbion surrounds, and from the smaller parades out towards Allestree and Mickleover.
Derby’s engineering and automotive base means a good share of instructions involve units holding genuine plant and stock. It also means a high proportion of that plant is financed, leased or subject to retention of title, and cannot be taken into control. Establishing what the tenant actually owns before attending is the difference between a productive visit and a wasted one.
What tends to matter locally
That cuts both ways. Engineering tenants often have valuable plant on site, but plant is very frequently on finance or lease rather than owned outright. Establishing what the tenant actually owns comes before anything is listed, because taking control of goods that belong to a finance company is a serious problem.
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.
We attend Derby regularly and plan visits around the occupier’s hours: trade counters here open and close early, and a visit timed for an office day achieves nothing.
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 Derby 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.