Recovering commercial rent in West London
West London is the part of the capital where industrial and office property sit side by side, and it produces the widest range of commercial arrears work we see anywhere in London. Park Royal alone is among the largest industrial estates in Europe, and the office corridor from Hammersmith through Chiswick to Ealing is a substantial market in its own right.
The industrial side runs through Park Royal, Acton, Southall and the Great Western corridor: food manufacturing, logistics, wholesale, trade counters and light engineering. The office side concentrates around Hammersmith Broadway, Chiswick Park, Ealing Broadway and Paddington Basin. Retail and hospitality fill Shepherd’s Bush, Westfield’s surrounds, Chiswick High Road and the Uxbridge Road.
For enforcement that difference is decisive. An industrial or trade unit usually holds stock, vehicles, plant and racking: a genuinely strong position for taking control of goods. That is why a West London instruction is more often worth pursuing to attendance than a central London one.
The procedure itself, from the Notice of Enforcement to the sale of goods, is set out on our page on commercial rent arrears recovery. If CRAR may not suit your tenant in West London, our guide to how to recover commercial rent arrears sets it beside forfeiture, a money claim and a statutory demand.
What tends to matter locally
Ownership of plant is the recurring question. Goods on an industrial unit are frequently on hire purchase, lease or retention of title, and none of those can be taken into control. Establishing what the tenant actually owns before attending saves a wasted visit and an argument on site. We ask for the information up front rather than discovering it at the gate.
The second point is access and hours. Trade counters and food units open early and close early; logistics operations run late. An attendance timed for an office day achieves nothing on an estate that empties at three in the afternoon, and we plan around the occupier’s hours rather than our own.
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 West London we plan it around the occupier’s hours rather than our own, and we will say honestly whether a visit is likely to achieve anything before you pay for one.
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 identical across 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.