Our Services

We provide valuation advice covering all of the main commercial property sectors throughout the UK. The expertise, and deep understanding of property matters such as Landlord and Tenant Law that comes from our rent review work, means that we are able to go much further than simply providing a property valuation figure. Detailed reports from RICS Registered Valuers addressing specific issues are only our starting point. We aim to identify opportunities and risks and provide clients with a comprehensive analysis to help them make an informed commercial decision.

We provide valuation reports for:-

• Property Finance
• Accounts & Financial Statements
• Taxation
• Litigation
• Section 18/Diminution in Value Assessments (Dilapidations)

Our core expertise is advising clients when negotiating rent reviews and lease renewals for landlords and tenants. We have dealt with thousands of cases across all sectors of the property market. Our negotiating skills, diligent research, attention to detail and ability to critically appraise all of the scenarios will ensure the best outcome, which may not always be defined by a rental figure. Occasionally, negotiations do not yield an acceptable result and arbitration, or a court referral, is unavoidable. Our ability to present your case intelligently and persuasively is backed by a level of experience that gives weight to that opinion.

Rent reviews

A rent review is designed to reassess the market rent of a property at a date specified within the lease, usually at five yearly intervals. A Landlord will be focusing on maximising his return on the investment by increasing rental income, whilst the tenant is seeking to minimise this business overhead. We have extensive experience in acting for both landlords and tenants.

Lease Renewals

Lease renewals provide an opportunity for both owners and occupiers to reset their lease agreement in a more commercial form; they are not just a re-negotiation of the level of rent. The renewal involves navigating a number of procedural matters such as the service of formal notices, Court applications and interim rents.

Investors, professional asset managers and property lenders often require a different approach or analysis of their property investments.

We provide a variety of services aimed at maximising returns:

• Independent purchase reports
• Strategy advice and reports
• Lease re-gearing
• Redevelopment/conversion appraisals
• Law of Property Act Receiver receivership

Our Building Surveying team advises on matters that affect the physical aspects of a client’s premises. We outline here the breadth of services that we have a strong track record in:

Dilapidations

Determining the extent of a tenant’s liability to repair a premises either during a lease term or at its end can be complex, and requires specialist advice.  Tenants will seek to minimise their repairing, redecoration and reinstatement liabilities; landlords will wish to have the property back in repair, or receive a sum equivalent for doing so. Protocol requires landlords to follow the correct procedures if a claim is to succeed. Agreeing the extent of work required and accurately estimating its cost is only part of the task. Skilled negotiation is needed if the right result is to be achieved. Where the cost of the works is greater than the loss of value of the building, this can limit the amount that can be claimed by the landlord. Our valuers work closely with us to provide the specialist advice on this when needed. We have acted extensively for both landlords and tenants to prepare and negotiate schedules of dilapidations for all types of commercial property – and can organise and oversee repair works where this is appropriate.

Pre-acquisition & Building Surveys

For clients purchasing an investment, acquiring premises for their own occupation or concerned about property in an existing portfolio we can provide a report that advises on the state of repair and matters that affect the structure, fabric and condition of the building. Where concerns are identified, we will recommend remedial solutions or further investigations that may be appropriate. On larger or more complex buildings, we can organise specialist reports on behalf of clients to cover matters such as mechanical and electrical services or land contamination. We recognise that property is not the core business for some of our clients and will spend time where needed to help clients to understand the matters arising and how best to deal with them.

Schedule of Condition

A schedule of condition is required to benchmark the state of repair of a premises on a particular date, so that the condition at a future point can be compared against this.  They are often needed where a tenant’s repairing obligation is limited under the terms of a lease, or where building works are being undertaken to an adjacent area or property.  This type of schedule does not normally comment on the causes of any defects identified, or recommend remedial solutions. Our depth of knowledge will enable us to consider the most important areas that need to be covered by a schedule of condition and for them to be compiled in a format suitable for the particular situation.

Reinstatement Cost Assessment (RCA)

Often referred to as ‘fire insurance valuations’, these are reports that provide an up-to-date assessment of the cost of rebuilding a property. This means that where properties have been inspected and a RCA prepared, they will not be over or under-insured, and in the event of damage or destruction, the property owner has the confidence that the cost of reinstatement will be met by the insurer. In addition to adjusting the reinstatement cost annually using indices, the RICS recommends it is thoroughly checked at least every five years, by having an inspection made and the rebuilding cost recalculated. Our team has the expertise to prepare these reports.

Party Wall Matters

The Party Wall etc. Act controls the relationship between neighbouring owners where one of them wishes to carry out works on or adjacent to a boundary. It applies not only to party walls, but also boundary walls/fences and floors between separate owners. Any building works to a property should be planned, agreed and executed in a proper manner. Parties affected by the works being undertaken by others may have the right to appoint a surveyor of their choice to represent their interests, to ensure the works are undertaken to safeguard – and sometimes improve – the configuration, condition and value of their property asset. In nearly all cases, the surveyor’s reasonable costs will be borne by the party undertaking the works. The agreement – known as a Party Wall Award – is an important legal document which should be comprehensively and professionally prepared and agreed, to provide a mechanism for resolving conflict, damage, disruption and nuisance resulting from the works. The Award will accompany other documents defining the history and development of the property to become a valuable part of the records for the property expected by diligent owners and purchasers. We are experienced in advising on party wall matters, for both sides, often in complex cases involving sensitive city centre sites in multiple ownership.  We can prepare or agree the wording of Party Wall Awards and schedules of condition.

Maintenance Planning

It is useful for occupiers to plan ahead for expenditure on maintenance and refurbishment works. This enables them to plan their property strategy and maintenance budgets. ProMission is able to combine its experience of defects analysis and works implementation in order to compile a robust forecast of works that should be planned to be undertaken, with associated budget costs.  This is typically prepared for a five to ten year period, but can be done for longer.

Project Services cover matters involving the implementation of construction or refurbishment works. The areas where we most commonly assist clients are:

Organising and Overseeing works of construction and refurbishment or relocating a business to a new premises

Our team gets involved in identifying, specifying and overseeing works of alteration, refurbishment or construction. This can include us fully specifying the works being undertaken or compiling a design brief and implementing them on a ‘design and build’ basis.  The roles are described as contract administrator and employer’s agent respectively. All projects are carefully managed in terms of:

COST:     to ensure the process of appointing a contractor to undertake works gives clients certainty of scope and cost.  Before entering into a contract we check the contractor has not omitted any elements or provisionally costed items that can steeply rise once they are appointed. Prices must be competitive and there needs to be a mechanism for controlling or validating the cost of any variations to the project. Any payments made need to be open to scrutiny to ensure they have been properly certified.

PROGRAMME:   key to the success of a project is understanding how long each process or stage in the project will take, and where there are key decisions to be made to keep the project on track for completion by a specified date.  Where changes need to be made, the effect of these on the overall project completion timescale must be considered as there could be financial consequences as well.

RISKS:   our experience enables us to consider where problems are going to occur that could delay the project or add to the cost – so these can be identified and eliminated or managed.

TIME:   The amount of time needed to manage and communicate with the parties involved in the project; consider and respond to queries; check progress and quality; document changes and manage the overall process should not be under-estimated, and forms part of our role.

QUALITY:  The end result should reflect the level of quality anticipated by the brief and provide a robust and durable solution that is free from defects.  This will be dictated by the quality of materials used in the build and the standard of workmanship. This is something that we define at the outset in tender documents and monitor through to the end of the defects liability period.

HEALTH AND SAFETY:   Clients have a duty to ensure that all projects are carried out in such a way as to minimise risks to the health and safety of contractors, staff and others.  In larger projects, or those of more than one month, clients normally have a duty to appoint a CDM Coordinator to manage the health and safety elements of the project.  Whether we are appointed in this role or not, we will have health and safety in the forefront of our minds throughout the construction process. Effective project management is key to delivering successful projects, but before starting works on site, we may also deal with – where appropriate – these other issues on your behalf:

• Liaison with landlord for Licence to Alter
• Applications for Building Control
• Application for planning permission or listed building consent
• CDM co-ordination
• Compiling building contracts
• Furniture selection, negotiation and procurement

Our project managers ensure they are regularly on site to maintain close co-ordination with site personnel, oversee works, quality and programme. We also work closely with clients to understand their requirements from a project at the outset. We provide them with regular updates as works proceed, and chair project meetings.

Project Monitoring

This is required where works are being undertaken by one party and being funded by another.  The party that provides the finance for the works, which may be a bank or a fund, needs to know that the scope of works being undertaken is appropriate, and that it is being implemented to a good standard.  They will also need independent verification of the amounts being claimed, so they know they are only paying for properly completed works. Project Monitoring is a role we have undertaken for a number of banks and funding institutions.  A similar role can also been undertaken for clients acquiring a freehold or leasehold interest in space that has not yet been constructed/completed.  In this scenario we should be involved as early as possible in the process so that the developer’s scope of works can be clearly defined and standards agreed.  This could involve a degree of re-design if we are involved early enough.

Tenant’s Alterations

In situations where a tenant wishes to carry out alterations to a leasehold premises, it will need to obtain approval from the Landlord to check that the proposed works will not adversely affect the integrity of the building. Our experience of implementing and managing such works gives us an insight into what issues are going to be encountered, so we are able to well represent both landlords and tenants in this process.

CDM Coordination

Clients must ensure the HSE is notified of projects using an F10 form when they are undertaking a project that will last more than 30 days or involve more than 500 person days. This is a legal requirement under the Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2007. This will also trigger the need to appoint a CDM Coordinator to manage health and safety matters on a project. ProMission has surveyors trained specifically to undertake this role, and they have the benefit of overseeing a wide variety of construction work  to give them a sense of perspective.