Commercial letting: shopfronts, ground floor units, office floors, workshops and storage.
One month of rent as the fee on a completed letting, paid by the landlord. On a long commercial term we will quote a fixed figure instead, because a percentage of a five year rent is not a sensible fee for the same amount of work.
Commercial is a different trade from residential and the questions are almost entirely different. Frontage and the width of the road in front of it decide more than floor area does. Whether a space can take a kitchen depends on where the waste can go and whether an extract can reach outside air without pointing at somebody's window. A workshop needs a supply that will carry the machines, and finding that out after the lease is signed is an expensive conversation. Signage is worth asking about before you love the unit, not after.
The advance asked for on commercial space is usually longer than on a flat, six months being common, and on a shop the landlord will sometimes want more. That is negotiable and it is the thing most worth negotiating, because it is the largest single amount of cash the tenant has to find.
Two clauses decide whether a commercial letting ends well. The first is the fit out period: how many weeks the tenant has to build the shop, and whether rent runs during them. The second is what happens at the end, which is to say whether the tenant hands back the space as found or hands back the shop they built. Both should be written down in plain language and priced, and we will not let either side leave them vague to be dealt with later, because later is five years away and by then the argument is worth a quarter of a million.
We also handle assignments, where a business is sold and the lease goes with it. That needs the landlord's agreement in writing before anybody buys anything.