Orchard House Surgery, Suffolk, receives a substantial increase in Notional Rent.
GP Surveyors have worked for Orchard House Surgery since 2007, carrying out several Notional Rent reviews and gaining the practice a significant increase in reimbursement. When the surgery received their latest figures, Margaret West, the surgeries Finance Manager, got in touch with her Account Manager, Paul Hardman and instructed GP Surveyors to check their figures once again.
Since their previous review, the surgery had undertaken a variety of refurbishment works during 2017 and 2018. These projects comprised of the complete refurbishment of seven consultation rooms and administrative spaces, including new floors, ceilings, lighting, desking and wiring. The 2017 project was part-funded by an ETTF improvement grant and therefore subject to a rent abatement.
As a result of the improvement works the practice was inspected by the District Valuer (DV) on two additional occasions and therefore received three Notional Rent figures from 2016 to 2018. The first valuation was the surgeries triennial Notional Rent review in 2016, the second in 2017 and the third in 2018 were carried out after each improvement project was complete. Although the surgeries’ Notional Rent figure increased with each review, the practice felt that the level of the DVs’ valuation was not truly reflective of the improvements, therefore GP Surveyors were instructed to review the figures.
Once GP Surveyors were instructed to carry out the surgeries Notional Rent reviews, the practice’s case was allocated to one of our experienced Valuation Surveyors, Nathan Young.
To ascertain if the surgery had a case to challenge the DVs’ Notional Rent valuation, Nathan cross-checked the surgeries proposed Notional Rent figures against our vast database of comparable evidence. When comparing Orchard House Surgery with like for like premises in the locality, Nathan found there to be sufficient evidence to move forward with a challenge to the District Valuers (DVs) initial opinion of the surgeries Notional Rent, starting with the 2016 figure.
Nathan’s cases were based on the following factors:
- Orchard House Surgery is a purposed built 1990’s surgery, refurbished to a high specification and therefore it should be placed in line with similar properties in the locality
- Low unit price per square meter
- Low price per parking space
Nathan presented the above case, alongside his comparable evidence to the DV and began negotiations to increase the surgeries Notional Rent reimbursement. Due to GP Surveyors’ strong comparable evidence, the DV agreed upon all the factors in Nathan’s case.
The outcome of the case was that Nathan successfully negotiated the surgery an increase to their 2016 Notional Rent figure. The increase to the 2016 figure enabled Nathan to open negotiations on the subsequent figures, as the starting figure pre improvements had increased. Nathan negotiated a further increase in the 2017 figure due to the first stage of improvement works, which carried through to the 2018 figure, which was again increased further due to additional improvement works.
The overall Notional Rent increase Nathan secured the practice benefited the surgery by thousands of pounds in additional rental income. The increased Notional Rent was backdated to the review date stated on the surgeries CMR6 form and the funds paid to the surgery in a lump sum. In addition, the uplift in their Notional Rent is likely to have increased the capital value of the surgery, significantly benefiting the property-owning partners.
Margaret and the practice partners were delighted with the outcome of GP Surveyors Notional Rent challenge. Margaret commented:
“This is the second time we have used GP Surveyors to assist with our Notional Rent review and once again they have been able to bring about a significant improvement in our funding. I was able to hand everything over to their professional team so very little time or effort was needed from me!”
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