Eighty20 Combined property solutions
Rent Review on a Premium Car Brand Franchise, Birmingham
The client occupied prominent and prestigious premises overlooking the city ring road. The property was held on an old fashioned lease containing infrequent rent reviews at every fifteen years. The client had benefitted from a historic rent as rents on other nearby properties had grown at reviews beyond the rate of inflation.
The Premium car manufacturer had a policy of allocating a limited number of vehicle units to its franchisees to preserve its residual market, so the client would be unable to increase sales in line with his budgeted large uplift in rent. The property was part of a portfolio owned by a large property company.
Pritchard discovered that the lease contained a specific use clause, defining the property to be used only for motor car and/or motorcycle sales. His investigations showed there to be no evidence of open market transactions on properties subject to such constrained uses. Pritchard used this as a negotiating lever inviting the landlord's surveyor to prove an uplift, which without evidence of properties subject to similar use definitions he could not do. The rent remained unchanged for the subsequent fifteen years.
