Recovering commercial rent in Stoke-on-Trent
Stoke is six towns rather than one, and its commercial property is spread accordingly. The ceramics industry that built it still shapes the industrial stock, alongside a substantial distribution presence on the A500 and M6.
Industrial and trade property runs through Etruria, Festival Park, Fenton, Longton and the Tunstall and Burslem corridors, with distribution parks out towards the motorway. Retail sits at the Potteries Centre in Hanley and the individual town centres.
Ceramics and manufacturing units hold kilns, tooling and stock. Kilns and heavy plant are usually financed or fixed to the premises, which puts them outside what can be taken into control, but finished and raw stock is often substantial.
What tends to matter locally
Because Stoke is six town centres rather than one, retail arrears behave very differently between Hanley and the outlying towns. A unit that is failing in Longton may reflect the pitch rather than the tenant.
On the manufacturing side, ask early whether plant is fixed to the premises. Fixtures pass with the property and cannot be taken as goods, and in a pottery a great deal is fixed.
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 Stoke-on-Trent 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 Stoke-on-Trent 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.