Commercial · The Lease
Commercial.
Walking a shop unit and recording its condition is the same skill as walking a flat. What changes is the money riding on the document.
The Ladder
Priced on a day rate, not a room count.
Before the lease
FlagshipSchedule of Condition
A dated photographic record of the unit as the tenant takes it on, annexed to the lease by their solicitor.
It caps the tenant's dilapidations liability at the condition they actually inherited. That is why it is worth what it is worth.
We record the condition. We do not draft or advise on the lease.
Incoming tenant
During
Interim Inspection
A periodic walk of the unit during the term, checking the tenant is keeping to the repairing covenants.
Landlords who never look until the last month are the ones who end up in a dispute they cannot evidence.
Landlord · annual
Lease end
Exit Record
The unit walked again at lease end, against the original schedule. Changes appended, never rewritten.
Not a dilapidations schedule — that names breaches, cites clauses and prices remedies as a legal claim. Building surveyor and solicitor work. We supply the facts it's built on.
Either party
Ongoing
RecurringVacant Property Visits
Short dated visits to an empty unit. Security, water, heating, signs of entry, damage. Photographed and logged.
Unoccupied property cover usually carries an inspection condition. Miss the interval and the insurer can decline the claim.
Owner · contracted
Where the volume is
Not in schedules of condition — Lincoln does not let that many units. It is in vacant property rounds and interim inspections, both contracted and both repeatable. We sell the flagship, and live off the rounds.
Who to talk to
Commercial agents and property solicitors, more than landlords directly — the solicitor is usually the one who tells a tenant to get a schedule before they sign.
Asked & answered.
Same idea, different market. An inventory is the residential term — used for a tenancy, and it usually lists contents as well as condition. A schedule of condition is the commercial term — used for a lease, and it's condition only, since a shop unit doesn't come with furniture.
A typical one to two-bedroom flat takes around an hour. Larger properties and full commercial units take longer — we'll give you a time estimate when you book.
Yes. Inventories, check-ins, mid-terms and check-outs for residential tenancies, and schedules of condition, interim inspections, exit records and vacant property visits for commercial leases.
No. We record condition — photographed, dated, and written up — we don't offer an opinion on structural condition, valuation, or a purchase decision. For that, see The Second Opinion arm (coming soon) or speak to a RICS surveyor.
We aim to have the written report with you within 48 hours of the visit, photographs included.