Recovering commercial rent in Portsmouth
Portsmouth is a naval and port city, and a large share of its commercial property exists to serve the dockyard, the ferry port and the marine trade. That makes for strong industrial stock and difficult questions about who owns what is standing in it.
Industrial and trade property runs through Hilsea, the Airport Industrial Estate, Farlington and out along the A27 towards Havant and Fareham. Retail and leisure concentrate at Gunwharf Quays, Commercial Road and Palmerston Road in Southsea. Office stock sits around Lakeside North Harbour and the civic centre.
The marine and defence supply chain is the complication. A Portsmouth unit may be full of components, tooling and stock that belongs to a prime contractor rather than the tenant, and none of that can be taken into control. Establishing ownership before an attendance is not optional here.
What tends to matter locally
Where a tenant supplies the dockyard or the marine trade, assume the working position is that much of the plant is financed and much of the stock is somebody else’s. We ask for the finance and supply agreements up front rather than discovering the position at the gate.
Southsea retail runs on a seasonal trade in the same way as any resort, and arrears built over the winter are frequently recoverable by trading rather than by enforcement. That is worth weighing before a notice is served.
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 Portsmouth 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 Portsmouth 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.