Slipperfield’s Director, Gillian Murray, has led numerous and various pre-acquisition due diligence, dilapidations and survey projects across her 24+ years career. She has led national service lines and overseen delivery of pan-European portfolio instructions. Here are some key examples of Gillian’s work, note, for confidentiality reasons, we have not provided specific client details.
-
Acting for an international retail client, Gillian led the delivery of schedules of condition in respect of new sites in order to minimise the client’s end of term dilapidations liability. Gillian also oversaw the delivery of dilapidations management advice in respect of three properties in Ireland for the same client, where she advised on the best exit and negotiating strategies for the client in order to minimise their dilapidations obligations.
-
Acting for an international manufacturing client in several business acquisitions, Gillian led and oversaw the delivery of a schedule of condition and dilapidations assessment advice that helped the client understand what leasehold liability it was acquiring as part of the transaction. The client was able to build mitigation into its deal structure to allow the transaction to proceed in full knowledge of the property-related contractual lease liability, giving the client the information it needed to accrue for its leasehold liability.
-
Acting for a Fortune 500 corporate with some 700K sq ft of leasehold UK and Ireland properties, Gillian led the portfolio dilapidations management of the client portfolio, directing strategies around break options and other lease events to minimise the client’s dilapidations liabilities and aid its financial and tax planning around dilapidations.
-
Acting for a Fortune 500 corporate, Gillian and her team assessed the client’s dilapidations liability during the lease term. Towards the end of the term, the landlord served a schedule of dilapidations on the client and Gillian defended the claim achieving a 72% saving on the landlord’s claim through careful negotiation in full consultation with the client’s legal advisors.
-
Gillian provided an assessment of the dilapidations in respect of two office buildings in Glasgow that were proposed to be let on full repairing and insuring terms. She provided advice as to how to mitigate particularly onerous proposed lease clauses and helped the client mitigate the potential liability via preparation of a schedule of condition.
-
Acting for an international company downsizing from a full repairing obligation of a whole office building to one floor on internal repairing terms, Gillian led the negotiations of the landlord’s claim of £2.36M to a commercial settlement of £750K, saving the client over £1.6M (68% saving).
-
Acting for an international law firm and working closely with its litigation team, Gillian defended a c.£1M claim, reducing it by over 58% through expert analysis of the landlord’s claim and negotiation.
-
Gillian assessed the dilapidations liabilities of over 100K sq ft of multi-landlord portfolio of industrial assets in the north east on behalf of a client planning its exit strategy from the units to a single headquarter building, identifying strengths and weaknesses around each circumstance and aiding the client’s financial planning around each.
-
Dilapidations appraisal of 200K sq ft city offices, pre-lease expiry. Gillian led a team of specialists to inspect and report on the tenant's dilapidations obligations then worked closely with the tenant's solicitors to advise on the best strategy to adopt to minimise the claim, given the client's preference to negotiate with the landlord directly. Settlement was in line with her initial appraisal, at just over £4M.
-
Client was a mid-landlord. Gillian prepared the defence to the landlord’s claim of £378K and negotiated a saving of over £105K for the client, thereafter recovering 100% of the client’s loss from the sub-tenant.
-
Tenant break of six leases totalling just under 200.5K sq ft on a West London industrial estate. Claim was £1.74M, negotiated to a settlement of £1.2M payment, plus tenant's strip out works valued at £300K.