Recovering commercial rent in Swansea
Swansea is the second commercial centre in Wales and the natural base for work running west towards Llanelli and Carmarthenshire. The arrears divide sharply between the trade and industrial estates inland and the leisure and retail stock along the waterfront and in the city centre.
Swansea Enterprise Park at Llansamlet is the largest concentration of trade, wholesale and light industrial property in the area and produces the bulk of our instructions. Morriston and Fforestfach carry further trade and retail parks. The office and leisure stock sits at SA1 Swansea Waterfront and around the Kingsway, with the Wind Street licensed trade a market of its own.
Enterprise Park units hold stock, racking and vehicles, which is a genuinely strong position for taking control of goods. Wind Street hospitality holds fit-out and stock and is usually worth pursuing. Serviced office space in SA1 is frequently licensed rather than leased, and a licence will not support CRAR at all.
What tends to matter locally
CRAR is identical in Wales and England: the Tribunals, Courts and Enforcement Act 2007 applies across both and there is no separate Welsh procedure. What does differ is residential letting, which has been on a different statutory footing since the Renting Homes (Wales) Act 2016. That does not touch commercial leases, but it means a mixed-use Swansea property needs looking at carefully, and CRAR is not available at all where any part of the premises is let as a dwelling.
The licensed trade needs its own care. A Wind Street unit will often hold a premises licence that is worth more than the goods inside it, and enforcement that closes the business can destroy the value a landlord is trying to recover. We will discuss that before attending rather than after.
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 Swansea 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 Swansea 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.