Recovering commercial rent in Hull
Hull is a port city, and the port and the renewable energy sector that has grown around it dominate the industrial property. It is also relatively isolated, which makes an attendance here a planned exercise rather than a same-day one.
Industrial and trade property runs along the docks, through Sutton Fields, Priory Park and the Hedon Road corridor. Retail sits at Princes Quay, St Stephen’s and Whitefriargate. Office stock is concentrated around the Old Town and the marina.
Port-related tenants raise the same ownership question as any dock: freight, containers and handling plant are very often somebody else’s. Sutton Fields and Priory Park carry more conventional trade and manufacturing.
What tends to matter locally
Where a tenant works the docks, assume little on the floor belongs to them until the paperwork says otherwise. It is the most common reason a Hull attendance recovers less than expected.
Hull city-centre retail has contracted sharply, and arrears there frequently reflect a failing business rather than a late one. Enforcement will end the tenancy and may recover very little.
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 Hull 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 Hull 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.