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Real Estate Occupiers

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As an occupier in today’s market, there are a number of key issues to consider. These include establishing strategies for disposal of surplus properties, whether by way of outright sale of freehold interests or termination/assignment of lease arrangements, ensuring that a tenant is adequately protected on a new headquarters letting, and making sure that the appropriate wayleaves are in place at the time the tenant needs them for communications equipment – essential for business continuity.

Whatever type of premises you want to occupy, it is important that you have an adviser who understands your requirements and your sector and can drive through the deal to meet your timeframe.

At CMS, we act for a wide range of occupier clients across the UK. Over the years, we have used our experience to identify the issues common to leasing; developing processes, toolkits and templates to streamline negotiations and minimise transaction time.

In Scotland, we advise clients like Standard Life (the largest corporate occupier in Scotland) on the management of its operational Scottish properties, including the transfer and leaseback of properties as part of demutualisation and optimisation of space to meet current occupational requirements.

We also act for one of the world’s largest online retailers in relation to the acquisition, development and leasing of its logistics portfolio across Europe and for other occupiers on the disposal of surplus sites for development.

Collaboration with clients and their professional advisors is essential. We believe it is important to share collective expertise with a view to streamlining commercial real estate transactions for the benefit of the real estate market as a whole. In England, we played an integral part in the creation of the Model Commercial Lease – an industry wide standard, and in Scotland we are a founder member of the award-winning Property Standardisation Group developing and publishing a wide range of balanced, easy to use and understand lease management documents.

10/11/2023
Driving sustainability in real estate and construction
Contributing to the fight against climate change and creating social value are now priorities for the real estate and construction sectors.   The long-term nature of the built environment means that resilience and sustainability should be considered at every stage if buildings are to be environmentally and socially responsible. This brings both opportunities and challenges for the businesses that create, own or maintain it. They must consider the evolving technical, regulatory and market landscape, to ensure that their investments are future-proofed commercially, as well as environmentally and socially. This section of Bandwidth looks at some of the ESG issues that confront developers and property owners, and how they can incorporate practical solutions into their businesses.
Highlights of our Experience in Real Estate Occupiers in the UK
Harvey Nichols on plans for the relocation and doubling in size of anchor tenant’s Harvey Nichols store in The Mailbox, Birmingham. Aviva Investors on their lease to Sainsbury's Bank of 3 Loch­side Av­en­ue...
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20/06/2024
Manifest-EES
Despite Rishi Sunak’s September 2023 MEES U-turn and announcement of a “more pragmatic, proportionate, and realistic approach” to meeting net-zero, energy costs and climate policies remain crucial topics of national debate ahead of the election on 4 July. MEES is (was?) a flagship policy designed to support the UK’s drive and commitment to reach net zero emissions by 2050. For many years, we have been examining and discussing the impact of the MEES regulations on commercial real estate: from application through to enforcement (or lack thereof). With the Climate Change Committee’s warning that current UK policies will not deliver net zero in time for 2050, how are the main political parties proposing to approach MEES in the coming years?Generally speaking, in the context of energy efficiency, the manifestos from the Conservatives, Labour, Liberal Democrats and Reform UK tend to focus on the approach to residential property, but the manifesto commentary released by each party provides an indication of the likely direction of travel for commercial real estate:Based on recent projections, the Labour Party are on track for the second largest majority since the Second World War. It is therefore incredibly likely that MEES will be reintroduced by 2030, but with the caveat that “nobody will be forced to rip out their boiler”. The impact on commercial property remains unknown, but with a new mission to “Make Britain a Clean Energy Superpower by 2030”, it is anticipated that commercial real estate will be subject to higher MEES benchmarks in the coming years.A complete overhaul – or at the very least a shake up?
20/02/2024
MEES - why are local authorities failing to enforce?
The UK government has a continued drive and commitment to reach net zero emissions by 2050. Yet as highlighted in the first of this series of publications, “MEES – are the regulations working?” the risk of MEES enforcement is low. Against a hotly discussed political backdrop, why is it that local authorities are continually failing to enforce the MEES regulations? Left alone, the existing approach serves to undermine the UK’s net zero strategy.
28/06/2023
Tomorrow
Taking the long view Even in challenging times, real estate investors continue to have a strong degree of confidence in the future of the sector.
14/06/2023
London
The majority of UK real estate professionals continue to believe that London is overvalued. As our chart shows, this is very much business as usual. Over the past eight years, only 2021 - when investors began to wonder what a post-covid market might look like - has challenged the status quo. Even then, what we saw was only a significant narrowing of the gap, not a reversal. In this year’s polling, 62% of our respondents feel London is overvalued, as opposed to 6% who believe it is undervalued. These are the most bearish numbers we have seen since pre‑Brexit days.
14/06/2023
Infographic
  
14/06/2023
Sustainable offices and EPC requirements
Investors may be moving towards the view that making offices sustainable does not necessarily equate to higher costs for occupiers.
14/06/2023
The view from the UK
Every year we ask a cross-section of leading UK real estate professionals for their views on the market. This year we polled 270 experts, including 62 investors and 54 developers. In many ways they share the outlook of the global investors we surveyed, with long-term confidence tempered by short-term concerns. Overall, 38% reported feeling optimistic about the market, while 34% describe themselves as neutral and 28% are pessimistic. Although positive, this take on the market is unsurprisingly more cautious than the one we found 12 months ago, with sentiment falling back to levels last seen at the beginning of the pandemic as the more bullish outlook of the past two years recedes.
14/06/2023
Global cities
As our chart shows, the genuinely ‘global’ cities remain the most appealing (albeit by slim margins), with the top four slots going to London, Paris, Tokyo and New York.
14/06/2023
The big picture
Despite a difficult year and an uncertain outlook, we found strong underlying positives among investors globally.
06/06/2023
Other UK cities
Looking at the rest of the UK, Manchester still remains on top of our ranking of regional cities, popular with 58% of UK professionals.
06/06/2023
Asset classes
Given the strong demand/supply imbalance, it is no surprise to see ‘living’ asset classes take the top spots when professionals are asked which sectors they favour.
06/06/2023
Survey methodology
Investors (online polling between 28 April and 3 May 2023) n=1,002 global institutional in­vestors. Res­ults were weighted by region to ensure comparability with previous results. In­dustry (on­line polling between 21 April and 10 May 2023) n=270 professionals in the UK real estate in­dustry. Res­ults were weighted by role to ensure comparability with previous results.