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Government Call for Evidence: Commercial Rents and COVID-19

We have been unable to collect commercial rent arrears by way of CRAR (Commercial Rent Arrears Recovery) for over a year now aside from in very limited circumstances.

We appreciate this has caused severe financial pressure and there is evidence that some small businesses have continued to trade without paying commercial rents at the expense of landlords.

The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government has now launched a Call for Evidence on Covid-19 and commercial rents. The measures which are the subject of this call for evidence are:

• The moratorium on commercial lease evictions established by s82 of the Coronavirus Act 2020; and
• The restrictions on the use of Commercial Rent Arrears Recovery (CRAR) established by The Taking Control of Goods (Amendment) (Coronavirus) Regulations 2021.

In addition, these measures are complemented by the restrictions on the use of winding-up petitions and statutory demands established by 41(1)(b) of the Corporate Insolvency and Governance Act 2020 which applies economy-wide.

You can access details of the consultation here:

https://consult.communities.gov.uk/urban-policy/commercial-rents-and-covid-19-call-for-evidence

The Government requires responses to be submitted through an online questionnaire. Respondents are required to provide commercial information before they can proceed with completing the consultation.

If your business instructs us to collect commercial rent arrears via CRAR, we encourage you to complete the online questionnaire with detailed evidence of the impact on your business, including commercial data and your experience of business tenants in the current climate.

The responses to this questionnaire will heavily influence the Government’s future policy on the recovery of commercial rent arrears, which will affect your business.

The consultation has a closing date of 4 May.