It’d be great to get some ideas from #highstreet #property agent and legal colleagues on the subject of ‘assignments’.
With apologies to anyone who’s thinking the inner tackling vacancy geek in me has escaped (again…?).
Assignment becomes a thing (in this case) where the tenant of a property leaves before its lease agreement with the landlord is finished and so still has to pay the rent, sometimes for many years.
In circumstances like those we have in town and city centres now, where the market rent is likely lower than it had been when the agreement was signed, the landlord has little or no incentive to move things on to a point where a new tenant would pay less.
We often see agent boards go up as a sign that the tenant is trying to ‘assign’ the rest of its lease ie persuade another occupier to take over.
Where the ‘place’ via the council or BID has a tackling vacancy approach underway we’ll try to broker a #popupshop short term use.
Sometimes we see surrender agreements done but in our experience with #TheVacantShopsAcademy that’s rare.
So this whole situation is difficult and leaves us in a frustrating period with a vacant, often large, sometimes historic, #heritage prominent, typically deteriorating-looking building just sitting there.
Would love to hear examples of this issue being worked through and suggestions from those of you close to these of a more comprehensive way we can tackle it.
Thanks…!
