Fraser Bond connects clients to top industrial real estate, from logistics hubs to manufacturing units.
Industrial property carries liabilities that other commercial property does not, and most of them are invisible at a viewing. Contaminated land can reach a current owner where the polluter cannot be found. Any non-domestic building put up before 2000 is presumed to contain asbestos until surveyed. And on a full repairing lease, the dilapidations claim at the end can dwarf every rent-free you negotiated at the start. We deal with all three at heads of terms.
Any non-domestic building constructed before 2000 is presumed to contain asbestos until a survey says otherwise. We ask for the management survey, the register and the management plan — and we establish who the dutyholder is under the lease, because on a full repairing lease it is frequently you.
Under Part 2A of the Environmental Protection Act 1990, remediation liability falls first on whoever caused or knowingly permitted the contamination. Where that person cannot be found, it falls on the current owner or occupier. On a former industrial site that is a live risk, and a desk study is cheap compared with finding out later.
Industrial leases are usually full repairing and insuring. Roofs, slabs and cladding are expensive, and a dilapidations claim at the end of the term on a building you inherited in poor repair can exceed everything you saved on rent. A photographed schedule of condition is the cheapest protection there is.
Our fee is paid by the landlord or the vendor. No fee to you and no acquisition retainer — and no incentive to be quiet about a site with a history.
What you actually do in the building — the machinery, the power draw, the vehicles, whether you handle or store anything requiring a permit. That decides the use class you need, the units that work, and the diligence that matters.
Use class from the consent, previous uses on the site, asbestos survey and register, repairing obligation and any existing schedule of condition, rateable value, EPC, and any environmental permit attaching to the property.
A schedule of condition appended to the lease. A cap on repairing liability. Environmental indemnities or a Phase 2 condition on a purchase. These are negotiable, and they are cheap to ask for before you sign and impossible afterwards.
Part 2A of the Environmental Protection Act 1990 allocates remediation liability in two tiers. A Class A appropriate person is someone who caused or knowingly permitted the contaminating substances to be in, on or under the land. A Class B appropriate person is the current owner or occupier — and Class B becomes liable only where no Class A person can be found.
On an industrial site that is a real rather than theoretical risk. Historic operators dissolve. Records disappear. Where the original polluter has gone, the regulator looks at whoever owns or occupies the land now. The liability attaches to the land, not to the transaction that brought you to it, and it is not extinguished by the fact that you did not cause it.
Under regulation 4 of the Control of Asbestos Regulations 2012 there is a duty to manage asbestos in non-domestic premises. Any building constructed before 2000 is presumed to contain asbestos unless a survey establishes otherwise, and industrial stock of that age very often does — in roof sheeting, insulation board, cement panels, flues, gaskets and floor tiles.
The dutyholder is whoever is responsible for the repair and maintenance of the premises, which is decided by the lease rather than by who owns the freehold. On a full repairing lease, that is usually the tenant. The duty requires a management survey by a competent person, an asbestos register recording location and condition, a written management plan covering monitoring, re-inspection and contractor briefing, and annual review.
Two things follow. If you are taking a lease of a pre-2000 building, establish whether the register exists and whether it is current, because you may be inheriting the duty along with the keys. And if you are planning a fit-out, the register determines what you can do and at what cost — disturbing asbestos-containing materials is a licensed activity with its own timetable.
Industrial leases are typically full repairing and insuring, with an obligation to yield up in repair. On a warehouse or estate unit that means roof coverings, cladding, the slab, drainage, doors and any plant. Where you take a building that is already tired, the obligation is generally to hand it back in better condition than you found it, and a terminal schedule of dilapidations can run into six figures on a mid-sized unit.
Planning consent is not the only permission an industrial occupier needs. Depending on the process, you may need an environmental permit from the Environment Agency or the local authority — for waste operations, certain installations, emissions to air, or discharge to water or sewer. A permit attaches to the operator and the site, and taking on a building where a previous permit was surrendered or revoked can complicate obtaining your own.
Then there are the insurer’s requirements, which on industrial property are frequently more demanding than the regulator’s: sprinkler provision and its maintenance certification, compartmentation, storage heights and racking, hot works procedures, and restrictions on what may be stored. It is worth putting the specification to your broker before heads of terms rather than after, because a condition you cannot meet is a building you cannot use.
B2 general industrial and B8 storage and distribution sit outside Class E, so neither has the flexible change-of-use rights that light industrial in Class E(g) enjoys. Establish which one the consent actually grants, because the difference decides both what you may do and what the building is worth to the next occupier.
For rates, industrial property sits on the standard multipliers from 1 April 2026: 43.2p below £51,000 rateable value, 48.0p from £51,000 to £499,999, and 50.8p at £500,000 and above, applied to the whole rateable value. The industrial-specific point is empty rates: the exemption period for industrial property is six months rather than three, after which full rates fall due on an empty unit. If your lease runs longer than your certainty, model the cost of holding it empty before you rely on a break.
In London there is a further layer. Industrial land is protected by policy, and that policy is being rewritten — the draft London Plan consultation ran to 15 October 2026 and removes data centres from the definition of industrial use. Rents in inner London industrial reflect that scarcity: units in Southwark, Battersea and Peckham on this page range from around £15 to £25 per square foot, a spread that has far more to do with designation and alternative use pressure than with the buildings themselves.
Yes, in some circumstances. Part 2A of the Environmental Protection Act 1990 pursues Class A persons first — those who caused or knowingly permitted the contamination. But where no Class A person can be found, liability falls on Class B: the current owner or occupier. On former industrial land where the original operator has been dissolved, that is a realistic outcome rather than a theoretical one. A Phase 1 desk study is inexpensive and establishes the site history; if it flags anything, a Phase 2 investigation takes samples. Both need to happen before completion, because neither gives you any leverage afterwards.
If it was built before 2000, assume yes until a survey says otherwise — industrial stock of that age commonly contains it in roof sheeting, insulation board, cement panels and flues. Under regulation 4 of the Control of Asbestos Regulations 2012 the dutyholder is whoever is responsible for repair and maintenance, which the lease decides. On a full repairing lease that is usually the tenant. Ask for the management survey, the register and the management plan, and check they are current, because you may be inheriting the duty with the keys.
A schedule of condition, photographed and appended to the lease. Industrial leases are usually full repairing and insuring, and roofs, slabs and cladding are expensive to put right. Without a schedule you can take a tired building and be required to hand it back in better condition than you found it, with a terminal dilapidations claim to match. It costs a few hundred pounds to prepare, landlords resist it routinely and concede it more often than tenants expect, and it is worth more than most rent-free periods.
Because the constraint is land, not buildings. Inner London industrial units on this page range from roughly £15 to £25 per square foot, and the spread reflects designation and alternative use pressure far more than specification. Industrial land in London is protected by planning policy precisely because it is under pressure from higher value uses, and that policy is currently being rewritten — the draft London Plan consultation ran to 15 October 2026 and removes data centres from the industrial land definition. If part of your case for a site rests on a future alternative use, test it against the policy before you pay for it.
You pay them. Industrial property gets a six-month exemption from empty rates — longer than the three months most other classes receive — but after that full rates fall due on an empty unit. From April 2026 that means 43.2p, 48.0p or 50.8p applied to the rateable value depending on size, with the top rate applying to the whole assessment rather than the excess. If you are taking a lease longer than your certainty about the operation, model what an empty unit costs you up to the break date, because that figure decides whether the break is genuinely usable.
