Ask The Experts - Surgery Relocation, Lease Surrender

Answer

Under the 2004 Premises Costs Directions the PCT can provide a grant towards the cost of surrendering or assigning a lease. Under your lease the practice is committed to pay rent during a specified term and there is no automatic way of getting out of that contract or surrendering it back to the landlord. Any surrender is purely a matter of negotiation and the normal way out is to sell the lease to some other potential user which could be, for example, a dentist, physiotherapist or other healthcare provider. The PCT, however, is able to give you a grant to cover the expense of either effecting the surrender or the assignment subject to that being ‘value for money' as determined by the district valuer.