Ask The Experts - GP Tenants

Answer

I regularly get questions on how to properly divide the rent and repair responsibilities between premises owning GP partners and non premises owning GP partners, and your question has added a third dimension of a premises owning salaried GP. In deciding how to divide the rent and repair responsibility, it is essential to determine who is landlord and who is tenant. The landlord is the property owning GPs, be they a partner or a salaried doctor (the distinction makes no difference) and they should receive the Notional Rent divided in their allocated shares. Having regard to the build-up of the Notional Rent, the landlords should then bear responsibility for all external and structural repair, external decoration and for putting in place the Building Insurance. An alternate would be for the Practice to strip out from the Notional Rent about 7½% and for them to retain that towards the aforementioned repairs and insurance. The balance of circa 92½% would be paid to the landlords who would be relieved of any repair liability.

The tenant will be both the non property owning partners and the property owning partners (i.e. together the Practice excluding salaried GPs) who, if the landlords receive the full Notional Rent, should still bear the cost of internal repair and internal decoration. If the Practice retain 7½% or thereabouts of the rent, it will be reasonable for them, by agreement, to undertake all repair and to cover the cost of Building Insurance.