The Lease tab

This article walks through the Lease tab, where a business property keeps its lease, rent, occupier, key dates, paperwork and notices. A business lease works differently from a home tenancy: the occupier is a company, the lease may be inside or outside the Landlord and Tenant Act 1954, and the lease says who repairs what. The example is Unit 3 Cordwainer Row, let to Pennyroyal Provisions Limited.

Add the lease

A new commercial property opens on a Lease tab with No lease yet. This picture is another shop of ours, 1b-1c Poets Road, that has no lease. You have two ways in: Upload signed lease is quicker, and Add lease details manually opens a form.

If you upload, Abodient reads the lease and opens Check the lease we read, filled in with what it found: the occupier company, the term dates, the rent and how often it is demanded, the deposit, the review and the break. Check each line and confirm. A value you confirm is never overwritten by a later upload. If a new document disagrees, you are asked which to keep.

If you add the details yourself, New lease asks for the occupier's business name, the lease start and end, the rent per year and how it's paid. The picture shows it filled in with the Pennyroyal lease, not yet saved. Press Create lease at the foot of the form to save.

Read the tab

Once there is a lease, the tab runs top to bottom.

• Lease terms are three chips: security of tenure (here Contracted out), repair basis (Full repairing (FRI)) and whether you have opted to tax.
• Current lease shows the start, end, rent (per quarter, with VAT if charged) and rent deposit. Beside it are View full details, End lease and New lease.
• Occupier is covered in Your commercial tenant.
• Key dates, Paperwork and Notices follow. See Key dates and notices.

Edit the lease terms

Press Edit beside Lease terms.

• Security of tenure: Inside the 1954 Act means the occupier has the right to renew at expiry. Contracted out means expiry is a hard end date.
• Repairs: Full repairing and insuring (FRI), Internal repairing (IRI) or Other. This is the choice that says whose repair a problem is.
• VAT: Opted to tax or Not opted to tax.
• Permitted use: what the lease lets the occupier do in the premises, for example retail.

Abodient never guesses the repair basis. It is only filled in when you confirm it.

See everything in one place

View full details opens a panel with the occupier, the lease and the money in one list. Scroll it for the key dates.

The rent deposit is held under a deed. There is no deposit scheme and no protection deadline.

If something's not right

• Cadence not set. The Rent figure asks you to say how the rent falls due. Until you do, the property has no rent demands. Open the lease and set How it's paid.
• The lease has details to check. A banner offers Check it or Check them. Open it and choose to keep your value or use the document's.