Schedule of Condition Services Hampshire & London

Signing a commercial lease without a Schedule of Condition is one of the most common — and most costly — mistakes a commercial tenant can make.

Under a Full Repairing and Insuring (FRI) lease, you are responsible for returning the property to the landlord in good repair at the end of your tenancy. Without a contemporaneous record of the condition at the start, you could be held liable for dilapidations — the cost of repairs and reinstatement — that have nothing to do with your occupation. Pre-existing cracks, worn roofing, dated services, faded decorations — all of these become your problem if there’s no evidence they were there before you moved in.

A Schedule of Condition is your evidence. It’s your protection. And it needs to be prepared properly, by an experienced chartered building surveyor, before you sign.

Specialisms

• Schedule of Condition services for new Tenancies

  Providing formal schedules of condition for inclusion in lease documents. These detailed schedules can prove invaluable at the end of the lease when it comes to defending a dilapidations claim and also to limit your maintenance and repairing liability throughout the lease term.

  Our reports are professionally produced by chartered building surveyors and are industry accepted documents which can be passed straight to your solicitor or legal advisors for inclusion in the lease documents.

• Pre-commencement schedules

  Are you are builder or contractor and have an upcoming project. Professional schedules of condition are excellent documents and accurately recording the condition of elements which maybe affected by the work you are doing. By getting a detailed record of the condition of these elements you protect yourself against potential claims of damage to these elements.

• Schedules of Condition for Party Wall Awards

  Providing formal schedules of condition to supplement Party Wall awards.

• General Advice

  Not sure what you require. Get in touch with us for an informative chat.

What does a Schedule of Condition record?

Our schedules are comprehensive, photographic records of the property’s condition at a given point in time. Every element of the premises is documented in a clear, methodical way — structured to stand up to scrutiny in any subsequent dilapidations dispute. This includes:

• Roof coverings and structure — inspected using drone technology as standard
• External elevations, walls, windows, rainwater goods and boundaries
• Internal fabric — floors, walls, ceilings, partitions, doors and finishes
• Mechanical and electrical services — heating, ventilation, lighting and drainage
• External areas — car parks, hardstandings, landscaping and fencing
• Any existing alterations, fit-out items or bespoke features

Each element is described in plain, objective language and supported by high-quality photographs. Where there is ambiguity — a crack, a stain, a surface imperfection — we record it. Nothing is left open to interpretation.

The finished document is prepared to a standard suitable for annexation to your lease and can be agreed with the landlord’s surveyor where required.

I’ve already signed my lease. Is it too late?

Ideally, a Schedule of Condition should be prepared before the lease is signed. This is when it has maximum contractual weight — it can be formally annexed to the lease and referenced in the repairing covenants.

That said, if you’ve recently entered into a lease and haven’t yet commissioned a schedule, it’s still worth doing. A contemporaneous record prepared shortly after occupation — even if not annexed to the lease — can still provide useful evidence of condition at the time. And if you’re years into a lease and approaching renewal, a mid-term condition survey can establish a baseline before any dilapidations exposure crystallises.

The worst time to think about condition evidence is when a dilapidations claim has already landed. At that point, we move into negotiation territory — and while we can still help significantly, the leverage available to a tenant with a proper Schedule of Condition from the outset is always greater.

How a Schedule of Condition limits your dilapidations liability

The connection between a Schedule of Condition at lease start and your dilapidations position at lease end is direct — and significant.

Where a Schedule of Condition is properly recorded and annexed to the lease, your repairing obligations are typically qualified so that you need only return the property to the condition evidenced at the start of the term — no better. Without one, the starting point for any dilapidations claim is the full repairing standard implied by the lease.

In practical terms, the difference can amount to tens of thousands of pounds — or more on larger premises. We have helped tenants save over £1 million in dilapidations claims, and in many of those cases the strength of the tenant’s position came down to the quality of the evidence recorded at the outset.

We always recommend commissioning a Schedule of Condition alongside, or immediately after, a commercial building survey before entering into a new lease. If you’re taking a new lease, talk to us about combining both instructions at a reduced overall fee.

How quickly can you turn a schedule around?

We understand that lease transactions often move quickly and solicitors frequently need the schedule before exchange or completion. For most commercial premises, we can carry out the inspection within 2–5 working days of instruction and deliver the completed schedule within 5 working days thereafter.