Recovering commercial rent in York
York is a tourism and professional services city with a small and tightly constrained commercial core. Retail and hospitality inside the walls trade on visitors, and the industrial stock sits almost entirely on the ring road.
Retail and leisure run through Coney Street, Stonegate, the Shambles and Micklegate. Office stock sits around Monks Cross, Clifton Moor and the station. Industrial and trade property is at Clifton Moor, Layerthorpe and out towards Escrick and Elvington.
Inside the walls the units are small, the leases short and the stock genuinely valuable, which makes CRAR effective. The listed and conservation status of much of that property makes forfeiture and re-entry a more delicate exercise than elsewhere.
What tends to matter locally
Mixed use is very common in the historic core, where upper floors are frequently residential. CRAR is unavailable where any part of the demise is a dwelling, and in York that catches a great many addresses.
The visitor trade is heavily seasonal. A York retailer that looks hopeless in January is frequently sound by August, and enforcing in the quiet months can close a business that would otherwise have paid.
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 York 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 York 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.