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Legal Advice on Taking a Lease of a Surgery: Tips & Tricks
When it comes to renting premises, dentists, doctors, GPs and others working in the medical field, have particular needs that are very different from your usual commercial tenant of, say, an office.
Each time I advise a client looking to take on a lease of a surgery the following issues are invariably an important part of the negotiations.
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- Planning Consent – Change of Use
- Consent for Works
- Licences to Other Health Workers
- Security of Tenure
- Option to Purchase the Freehold
It is usually essential to ensure that you obtain planning consent for change of use before entering into a lease for a surgery. Obviously, you don’t want to find yourself bound to pay rent for premises that you wanted to use as a surgery but you can only use as an office.
Whether or not planning permission is needed, you will probably also need to get the Landlord’s consent to the proposed works. It is important that this is done, if possible, before you sign the lease as the Landlord could be difficult about granting consent after the lease has been completed and may ask for additional fees towards his professionals’ costs for providing the approval.
If this is important to you, then you will need to make it clear to the Landlord at an early stage of the negotiations that you want the lease to be protected under the provisions of Landlord and Tenant Act 1954. If you have a protected lease then, at the end of your lease, you will have the right to demand a new lease and the landlord will have limited grounds on which he could refuse.
If you are looking for the option to buy the freehold you need to get the landlord on board early on. In particular you will need to decide on important issues such as the option period (ie how long do you get to decide if you want to buy the property) and the price at which the landlord has to sell the property to you should you exercise your option. Option agreements can raise tricky issues, so be sure to get legal advice here.
Keep in mind that these are only a selection of some important issues that I have found crop up more often than not when negotiating the terms of a lease of a surgery. All the usual tricks and traps of taking on commercial leases will normally apply here as well. So, if you’re not used to the process make sure you get some proper legal advice.
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Commercial Property Solicitors:
Commercial Lease Information:
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Negotiating Commercial Lease Terms
How to Negotiate a Rent Free Period
The Risks of Being a Guarantor on a Commercial Lease
How Can a Tenant Exit a Commercial Property Lease?
Stamp Duty on Commercial Property Leases
Is it Possible to End a Commercial Lease Early?
Commercial Property Conveyancing Solicitors
Evicting Squatters From Commercial Property
Commercial Property Solicitors: How We Can Help
We also have dedicated pages covering the following lease types:
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