Renting part of a Commercial Property

[Dr_Gonzo]

Hi,

We are looking to rent out an unused part of our new office building (approximately 1,000 square foot). The building is on two levels and the area we're looking to let is the entire ground floor of one side, which has its own seperate entrance and exit.

Previously, the entrie building (both levels) was occupied by one company.

There are two issues we need to sort:

1) Business rates: The whole building currently has a rateable value of 40k. If we split off 1,000 sqft, what do we have to do to have the building rated as two seperate rating units? Is it as simple as just contacting the vaulation office or are there things we should do first before it could be re-rated?

2) The part we will rent out has the original street-accessed front entrace to entire the building. Our busines is essentially not open to the public so we have no need for a street-front entrace. The entrance we use is a side entrace which, although not hidden in anyway, is not the orignal entrance and not the main entrace the previous company used. Consequently, it is the street-front entrace that the post if currently delivered to. The issue we have with this would be getting our post delivered to our part of the building and the new tenant's post being delivered to theirs.

One idea we have is whether we could split the address in a '1' and '1a' type setup. With sufficient signage it would be fairly clear which entrace is for which company.

However, I'm not really sure what the process is for establishing a new address. Is it something that requires planning permission, or is it just a case of registering it with the post office?

I hope that explains everything; I can draw a rough diagram of the layout if that helps

Thanks,

The Doctor

[Dr_Gonzo]

Thanks for all the replies so far.

To answer a few points: We own the entire building. The area we are looking to rent out has it's own toilets and kitchen and is essentially self contained. We have plently of car parking spaces so we can use them to negotiate with.

We will probably look to offer an inclusive rent with the utilities (the area does however have it's own circuit and data wiring).

The main reason for the rating unit split would be to save on rates when it's unoccupied and so the cold smaller unit attract rate relief (if this worked out to lower the rates cost overall).

Therefore if there overall rates for the whole building (both sides) could be lowered due to unoccupied discount (for the first 3 months if unoccupied) and rate relief (longer term) of the split-off part, we would save regardless of whether we rent on a rates inclusive basis or not (at a rough guess I would think the rateable value for the seperate unit would be in the region of 9 - 10k so would attract some relief).

Would anyone know if the vaulation office give quotes for this sort of thing or is it a case of they will only give you a rateable value if the change is implemented?

Also, with regards to the post situation, our entrance (or rather, where we want the post delivered) is nowhere near the original street-facing entrace. Therefore, if we could differeniate ourselves through a seperate address that would hopefully stop any confusion (i.e. 'Number 1' and 'Number 1a').

If anyone has an experience of creating a new address for an existing building (i.e. spliting a building in two for address purposes) that would be great.

Thanks,

The Doctor