Recovering commercial rent in Nottingham
The Lace Market turned a quarter of Victorian warehouse buildings into offices, bars and creative studios, and a large student population keeps the hospitality trade turning over quickly. Short leases and fast failures are the pattern, so arrears are usually noticed late and the tenant is often already winding down.
We act for landlords, managing agents and surveyors across Nottinghamshire and the East Midlands, most often in the Lace Market, the city centre and Old Market Square, Castle Marina and Colwick 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
Nottingham arrears come from the office and creative stock in the Lace Market and around Castle Wharf, retail and hospitality through the city centre, Hockley and the Victoria Centre surrounds, and the industrial and trade estates at Colwick, Blenheim and the Nottingham Business Park corridor.
The Lace Market carries a practical complication the other Nottingham markets do not. Much of it is converted Victorian warehousing, subdivided repeatedly, and the demise in the lease frequently does not match what the occupier actually uses: shared stairwells, shared loading, and floors let to different tenants who store goods wherever there is room. Taking control of goods requires knowing whose goods they are and which premises they sit in, and in the Lace Market that is a question worth answering before an attendance rather than on the landing. Colwick and Blenheim, by contrast, are self-contained units where the position is usually clear.
What tends to matter locally
Nottingham splits sharply between the city centre and the industrial ring at Colwick and Blenheim. A city centre bar and a Colwick distribution unit are entirely different jobs: one has almost nothing worth taking control of, the other may have more than the arrears are worth.
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 Nottingham regularly and will say beforehand whether the goods likely to be on site justify the journey.
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 Nottingham 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.