Nigel Marsden - Chartered Building Surveryor

Schedule of Conditions

A ‘schedule of condition’ can be agreed at the beginning of a lease, either by the landlord or (more often) the tenant. If agreed by both parties the schedule becomes a document that will ensure the property is handed back in the same condition it was taken on in.

If you are about to take on a new lease of a property that you are concerned about, you can enter into such a schedule with your landlord, and then you have a good record of the state of the premises. This will ensure you have some sound evidence at lease termination years later.

These schedules include a wide range of aspects from leaking roofs, scruffy decoration and cracked floors, to damaged perimeter fences and party wall considerations. Many of these surveys contain photographs taken.

It is important that both parties agree with the content of the ‘schedule of condition’ and that both parties sign an agreed copy.

As part of my services I can be commissioned to re-inspect premises following a schedule of condition survey.

This is obviously a commercial premise but in this case it was re-inspected twice by myself in an ongoing monitoring process arranged by the Landlord

A ‘Schedules of Condition’ is normally drawn up at the commencement of a lease, but in this case the schedule was carried out on the industrial premises as the rental arrangements and agreement changed.

This was not a result of a change of tenancy

This caretakers’ bungalow has an agreed schedule of condition with the local constabulary prior to becoming a small local police office. The schedule was the result of a joint inspection and was agreed with the constabulary surveyor in a relatively short space of time so that work could commence as soon as possible on setting it up in its new role

In this case I acted for the tenant who wanted to hand back the property and terminate the lease. The client wanted to know how much things had changed during the extended lease, so they could compare the current state with the original schedule of condition and discover what it would cost to put the property back to its’ former state. In this case I provided the tenant with a cost as a result of the comparison