Recovering commercial rent in Manchester
Ancoats and the Northern Quarter turned a great deal of former mill space into offices, bars and studios, much of it let to young businesses on short leases with personal guarantees behind them. When those tenants fail they tend to fail quickly, and the goods on site are often worth less than the arrears.
We act for landlords, managing agents and surveyors across Greater Manchester, most often in Spinningfields, the Northern Quarter, Ancoats and New Islington and Salford Quays 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
Manchester instructions come from three distinct markets. Office and professional stock around Spinningfields, King Street and the Northern Quarter. Hospitality and independent retail through Ancoats, the Northern Quarter and the Deansgate corridor. And the industrial weight of Trafford Park, one of the largest industrial estates in Europe, together with Openshaw, Salford and the Eccles corridor.
Trafford Park is where CRAR is most likely to be worth taking to an attendance, because the units hold stock, plant and vehicles. The Northern Quarter and Ancoats hospitality stock holds fit-out and inventory and is also usually worth pursuing. Serviced offices in the centre are frequently licences rather than leases, and a licence will not support CRAR at all.
What tends to matter locally
Trafford Park remains one of the largest industrial estates in Europe, and commercial rent recovery there looks nothing like a city centre case: bigger units, heavier goods, and a real question about whether removal and sale is worth what it costs.
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.
Manchester is a planned attendance and we time it to the occupier’s hours. On Trafford Park that usually means early, not mid-afternoon.
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 Manchester 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.