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"Roughly 90% of UK businesses don't have access to the market information or knowledge to negotiate the best deal on their property costs.
This is largely because they can't afford to employ a full time Surveyor to manage their property costs, and information on their local market is not collected or published.
In 2005 the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister called on the property industry to solve this problem.
Having worked as a Chartered Surveyor for over 20 years helping businesses cut their property costs, I understood the difficulties in solving this problem, namely
Surveyors typically charge £200+ an hour, something which most businesses can't afford. So any solution had to be low cost.
Most Surveyors make their money from landlords. So any guidance to tenants has to be free from that bias
Information about the property market is dominated by information supplied by landlords, who have a vested interest in keeping prices up. So an independent source of data needed to be created.
My wife, Caroline, having spent a similar time developing software for the stock market, helped us work towards a solution.
That solution involves creating a new internet resource for businesses providing market information and guidance on how to use that information to negotiate.
Basically a businessmen sits down at his computer and is shown how to look at his property costs just like a Surveyor would. He is also provided with market data to help him negotiate a better deal and reminded when it is time to negotiate his property costs.
Nobodyelse in the property industry has come forward to take up the challenge thrown down by the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister. But that may be because lower property costs means less rent for landlords, and less taxation for the Government.
So LeaseholdersUnited is the only solution to combating the ever rising cost burden on UK businesses"
Andrew Bacon Bsc(Hons) MRICS Chartered Surveyor
Co Founder LeaseholdersUnited
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