New Commercial Property lease

[rich155rich]

Can any one set up a new lease using forms from the internet, or does a solicitor have to be used? Do i need to register the lease with the council or any one else? Any thing else i should know? thanks rich.

[Editor]

If you are serious about letting commercial property you need a good solicitor who knows about this field. Specialist solicitors listed here will be able to help: http://www.landlordzone.co.uk/dir/solicitors-legal.htm
Commercial leases usually involve some negotiation on terms necessitating a custom made solicitor's lease. With all the processing this will cost you a minimum of £500 but depending upon the circumstances you may get the tenant to pay all or half the costs.
If you can get your tenant to agree to a standard off-the-shelf lease this will save you money, but be very careful if you are not familiar with commercial lease terms. NetLawMan do some good commercial ones - see:
http://www.landlordzone.co.uk/dir/agreements-forms.htm
You don't need to register your lease with the local council, but now since Oct 2003 any lease for 7 years or over needs to be registered at the Land Registry. It's the tenant's responsibility to do this, though you as landlord should supply a LR Compliant lease plan for the purpose - see: http://www.landlordzone.co.uk/dir/planning-services.htm

[Paul_f]

Free Short-Term Commercial Leases can be downloaded from the British Property Federation website; it allows you to fill in the information first and then you can print the whole document and save it! They also have the Certificate if you want to keep it out of the 1954 Landlord & Tenant Act!

If you are not sure what you are doing, do as the Editor suggests.

The BPF site can be found at www.bpf.org.uk