I want to move to new premises but I need to sell/lease my current space. What do I do?
We looked at all the reasons for moving on from your current commercial premises and moving up in the world in our first blog of 2015. Read it here if you missed it. So if you want to move this year, but in order to do so will need to sell or lease your current premises, here’s what you need to do in five steps.
- Do a time-line
This is the kind of decision that can drag on and on as the day-to-day running of your business sucks up all your available headspace. Suddenly it will be January 2016 and you’ll still be looking at the same view. If you want to seriously look at moving, you need a plan, with deadlines. It can be as simple as highlighted dates on your wall calendar, an Excel spreadsheet or a Gantt chart. Whatever works for you. A wall calendar is good because you’ll see it every day and those deadlines will jump out at you. What are the milestones? By when will you have done the valuation? What period can you set aside for visiting property? Have your financial controller teed up so when the time comes to talk to the bank, all due diligence will have been exercised.
- Get your property valued
Only when you know the value of the property will you be able to make an informed decision about whether or not it’s feasible to upgrade to better premises.
What is property valuation?
Property valuation is a professional opinion of the value of your property based on a number of factors including the market, the condition of the premises, the location, the property type, and legal and financial information on the property.
The more information you can supply to the chartered surveyor the more accurate will be the valuation. Are you selling plant and fixtures? If so, these should be included in the valuation survey. What about furniture?
A valuation is usually a requirement from a bank or lending institution where you are seeking a loan or mortgage. In other words where you need to borrow funds to enable you to acquire better premises, you will have to have a valuation of your current premises done.
Make sure to use a chartered surveyor, such as O’Neill & Co. Darac O’Neill is a fully qualified and chartered surveyor and a member of both the Society of Chartered Surveyors of Ireland (SCSI) and the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors (RICS).
- Know exactly what you’re looking for
Know what you need from your new premises in the short- medium- and long term. You don’t want to go through the hassle of uprooting everyone only to find that your exponential growth means that 18 months from now you have outgrown your new space. It’s very easy to be influenced by push factors – all the reasons you want to flee where you are. But there also need to be strong pull factors. Think carefully about what type of premises will help you achieve your business objectives. Once you have that done, you’re ready to go to see a doctor …a property doctor.
- Get expert advice
Now that you know what your property is worth in the current market and what kind of space you are looking to move to, speak to an auctioneer/chartered surveyor who specialises in commercial property. Find out what the appetite is for the property you are selling or leasing. Will it sell? If you want to hang on to the property, will you find a good tenant easily?
Also talk to him or her about the type of premises you need. Discuss your ideal location. Suss out what’s available and what the costs are. Take the advice of the auctioneer on where you can get the best value. Does it make sense to buy your next premises or should you lease somewhere first? A good commercial auctioneer will point out associated costs of the move, such as business insurance, commercial rates payable, service charges and so on. You will of course have to have fully paid commercial rates on the property you are selling. For full details of your duty to inform your rating authority, click here.
- Talk to the money people
Obviously your accountant, commercial manager or financial controller will have been involved throughout the entire process but now that you have the essential information about the worth of your asset and the probable outlay you will be facing in a new premises, you can crunch the numbers and speak to your lender about finance.
O’Neill and Co specialises in commercial property in Dublin, Kildare, Wicklow, Carlow, Laois and Louth. We’d be happy to be your partner in the big move process. Give us a ring on 045 856604 to get things started.