Lease lengths fall for office space

Office design news from Morgan Lovell

Published on 01-09-2010

Small businesses are increasingly signing shorter leases for their office interior spaces, a report has shown.

According to the Annual Lease Review by the British Property Federation (BPF), 81 per cent of small firms now operate with leases of five years or less, with just three per cent of respondents holding a lease of ten years or more.

Liz Peace, chief executive of the BPF, said: "Shorter leases are probably a good thing, with the pace of business change so fast these days it makes little sense for most small ... businesses to tie themselves into the obligations of a long lease."

She added that the shorter length of leases on average could have been a contributing factor to why fewer small businesses found themselves in trouble during the recession.

Meanwhile, Michael Rhydderch, a partner at Cushman & Wakefield, recently stated that commercial property rents could continue to rise slowly over the short term, although the UK market is at present "more volatile" than that of Europe.

Posted by Ian Johnson