Recovering commercial rent in Middlesbrough
Teesside is process industry and port logistics, and the commercial units reflect it: yards, workshops and warehousing along the river rather than high street retail. Riverside Park and the industrial estates account for most of what we are instructed on here.
We act for landlords, managing agents and surveyors across Teesside and the North East, most often in the town centre and Albert Road, Riverside Park, Teesside Industrial Estate and Cargo Fleet 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
Teesside arrears are weighted towards industrial and trade property: Riverside Park, the Teesside Industrial Estate at Thornaby, Skippers Lane and the process and engineering supply chain along the river. Retail and hospitality work comes from the town centre, Captain Cook Square and the parades through Linthorpe.
The industrial weighting makes Teesside a reasonably strong CRAR market, because units hold stock and plant. The recurring obstacle is financed equipment: process and engineering plant is very often leased or on hire purchase, and cannot be taken into control however substantial it looks on site.
What tends to matter locally
Two things make Teesside different. Heavy plant is very often financed rather than owned, and access to chemical and process sites is controlled for safety reasons, so an attendance has to be arranged with the site rather than simply made. Neither is a reason not to act; both are reasons to plan properly.
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.
Attendances on Teesside are planned rather than same-day, and we say so plainly. What we will not do is charge for a visit that was never going to recover 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 Middlesbrough 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.