Dilapidations Surveyors in Putney: Schedules, Claims & Lease-End Advice

Locate the Putney demise within the actual plot

Wandsworth's Putney Embankment appraisal describes boathouses with differing orientations: some present long elevations to the river, while narrower frontages extend towards neighbouring houses. It records limited space between buildings and associated sheds. These named building forms do not establish that every riverside property has a commercial lease. Where one does, map the actual premises, structures, entrances and external areas from the executed documents. For a High Street unit, obtain its own plan rather than transfer a boathouse layout. The repair obligation must be read against the demise, shared provisions and any condition schedule; apparent open space behind a frontage cannot define responsibility or access rights.

Compile the tenant's fit-out and alteration evidence, identifying equipment, partitions, signage and service routes with their licences and dates. A proposed reinstatement item should state the provision relied upon and the making good required around retained construction. Seek advice about notices or unclear terms before treating a desired future arrangement as the handover obligation. Distinguish landlord fittings and earlier adaptations from changes under the current letting. If commencement photographs do not show a particular rear area or shed, identify that gap. Neither its position beside the unit nor a historical description proves who installed a component, who owns it or whether its removal can properly be required.

Local evidence: Wandsworth: Putney Embankment appraisal, sections 4 and 9.

Include the relevant Putney river-facing and service-side elements

The appraisal identifies Ruvigny Gardens' gabled rear elevations as part of the river-facing scene. It also notes the view of the rear of the High Street terrace from Weimar Street. A schedule should therefore locate the actual affected face rather than use front and rear as shorthand for important and unimportant work. At the leased premises, establish the material, observed condition and proposed remedy with marked photographs. Separate decoration, local repair and replacement, including any investigation needed at concealed junctions. A visible elevation can serve several occupiers, so show the contractual basis for each item rather than assume that the business reached from the street repairs all external fabric.

Keep the inspection date and purpose explicit as an interim review is followed by terminal or post-departure work. Tenant repairs or removals between visits should be recorded under the same references, distinguishing completed items from those still disputed. For services, identify the actual installations and maintenance evidence, including any shared connections or excluded equipment. RICS guidance provides a framework for the schedule and response in which obligations, allegations, remedies and costs remain traceable. That permits a disagreement about responsibility for a river-facing or service-side element to be examined separately from the technical question of how much work its observed condition justifies at the relevant time.

Local evidence: Wandsworth: Putney Embankment appraisal, sections 4 and 9; RICS: Dilapidations in England and Wales.

Test the Putney landlord’s future proposal against retained fabric

If the landlord intends to reconfigure a High Street unit, replace a riverside structure or change the internal fit-out, obtain the actual scheme and decision evidence. Identify components that will remain and those to be altered or removed, then compare the proposal with each repair or reinstatement item. The Embankment setting does not prove a future use, a committed incoming occupier or permission for redevelopment. Record unresolved timing and design matters rather than infer a scheme from a site's position. Where a contractor's quotation includes landlord improvements, separate them from work attributed to the alleged breach before relying on the total as evidence of the claimed loss.

Section 18(1) limits damages for breach of a repairing covenant by the resulting diminution in the value of the reversion. It also addresses demolition or structural alterations at or shortly after lease termination that would make the relevant repairs valueless. This is not an automatic cap on every category of a dilapidations claim. Obtain the appropriate legal and valuation assessment for the facts. Supersession should be considered against the landlord's evidenced intentions and the particular work claimed; a repair-cost total is not, by itself, proof of the loss to be demanded.

Local evidence: Wandsworth: Putney Embankment appraisal, sections 4 and 9; Landlord and Tenant Act 1927, section 18; Civil Procedure Rules: Dilapidations Protocol.

Explain Putney river access and the Weimar Street route

Wandsworth describes the close relationship between the Embankment boathouses, roadway and slipway, with activity extending between buildings and the river. A photograph of an empty frontage does not establish the operational route available for repairs. Confirm current occupation, rights and the proposed equipment position, maintaining agreed access where required. For work approached from Weimar Street, establish the present relationship between commercial premises, upper accommodation and external spaces. Measure the actual handling route and identify permissions, protection and reinstatement. A general riverside access premium or an assumed rear unloading position cannot explain which method is practicable at the particular premises and for the items claimed.

The estimate should show labour, quantities, equipment duration and waste handling for that method, supported by a quotation or invoice. Allocate shared access across relevant items without duplication and distinguish any operation also serving the landlord's improvement project. Compare an alternative tenant proposal against the same physical and permission constraints before accepting its saving. The terminal dilapidations protocol calls for a substantiated demand for loss rather than an unexplained works total. Retain condition photographs, lease references, alteration records and landlord-intention evidence with itemised responses, allowing negotiation to identify whether the unresolved issue concerns responsibility, remedy, the access assumption or the amount properly claimed.

Local evidence: Wandsworth: Putney Embankment appraisal, sections 4 and 9; Civil Procedure Rules: Dilapidations Protocol.

Putney lease-end questions