Dilapidations

Dilapidations is frequently an area of dispute between landlords and tenants as tenants seek to minimise their liability whilst landlords in return seek to place as much of the burden for repairing and refurbishing the premises on the tenant. The repairing obligations in a lease can be fairly onerous on a tenant and therefore costly to comply with. Further, dilapidations claims do give rise to difficult legal, surveying and valuation issues. Therefore, it is important for tenants to obtain expert legal and surveying advice at an early stage in order to consider their potential exposure and any defences that may be available to them to mitigate such exposure. Likewise, landlords will require specialist advice in ensure that they can maximise their recovery. 

IBB’s Real Estate Dispute Resolution team regularly advises landlords, tenants and property managers on dilapidations claims and disputes over repairing covenants. We have acted for clients defending dilapidations claims in excess of £5M, which have involved complex issues regarding standard of repair and valuation, amongst others. We have extensive experience of resolving dilapidations disputes through all forms of dispute resolution from mediation to trial at the High Court and Technology and Construction Court.

We will agree to handling certain elements of a dilapidations claim, such as service of the schedule and carrying out an initial review of the claim, on a fixed fee basis.