On lease expiry / renewal, landlords and tenants can add to their costs unnecessarily by discussing the matter with their solicitors.
28 June 2026(2026 June: LinkedIn) On lease expiry / renewal, landlords and tenants can add to their costs unnecessarily by discussing the matter with their solicitors.
For a renewal under LTA54 or grant of a new lease outside the Act, and where surveyors are instructed to negotiate the rent and outline terms and conditions for Heads of Terms, somewhere along the way solicitors will also be involved.
Except for some aspects of the instruction, most surveyors do not charge on a time-basis. Most solicitors however do charge on a time-basis. Not all solicitors do litigation so, where court procedures are involved, the conveyancing solicitor will recommend the client instructs litigation solicitors with whom the conveyancer has a working relationship.
Even if it’s the surveyor’s client to begin with, something all solicitors are prone to, unless the client specifically instructs otherwise, is assuming conduct of the matter.
Leaving it to the lawyers is commonplace. It is bad enough lawyers regarding Heads of Terms as the starting point for further negotiation in the drafting and approval of documents, sometimes resulting in one or both parties ending up with something different to what was agreed in principle – the client none the wiser until a rent review meets an experienced surveyor. (In a matter I’m involved with, had the solicitor been left to their own devices would have scuppered the entire deal.)
Litigation solicitors are something else. Part of their task is to try and settle the dispute without going to substantive hearing in court. They discuss with the client how to achieve that and set about it. Naturally, the client contacts the solicitor whenever something more to discuss. The clock is ticking. Advisers whose charges are time-based usually require an up-front payment. An up-front for example £750 to £1,000 at £350+VAT per hour doesn’t last long. One of the most profitable services provided by solicitors is an agreement to extend the end date of a s25 or s26 notice, a procedure to avoid the necessity for a court claim. After the initial drafting and approval, each subsequent agreement to extend is the same wording except for the extension date. Extensions are typically 3 months at a time, but can be shorter depending upon the circumstances. At approximately £750 + VAT for each extension, and 4 a year, the client would pay £3000 plus VAT. I rarely charge for drafting or approving extension agreements, all part of my service so anyone instructing me on a lease renewal would benefit. (This is not a hint: I have stringent criteria for taking on lease renewal instructions from new clients.)
A client discussing with a solicitor anything that the client’s surveyor could help with and/or would be the best person to deal with it is wasting money. In one case recently, a litigation solicitor charged my client tenant £10,000 ex VAT for what in theory made sense but in practice amounted to getting nowhere. I took over; Heads of Terms are with the conveyancers.
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