Advisory
MGRA provides technical property advice where a client needs to understand risk, options, obligations or next steps before committing to works, acquisition, occupation or another professional instruction.
Advice on the property question.
Typical work includes Technical Due Diligence, Lease Advisory and planned-maintenance strategy. A Reinstatement Cost Assessment may be instructed where insurance rebuild cost is required; it does not outrank those routes.
Lease Advisory is building-consultancy reading of lease obligations and how they affect the property, proposed works and future liabilities, including Licence to Alter where that is the question.
Where a Principal Designer appointment is required, see Principal Designer appointments.
Back to Expertise · Dilapidations · Inspection · Surveying · Design · Project Services · Principal Designer appointments
Technical Due Diligence
Technical Due Diligence combines a comprehensive inspection of the property with a review of the available technical and property information. It identifies significant defects, constraints, anticipated expenditure and matters requiring further investigation, helping a client make an informed acquisition, leasing or investment decision.
The scope is tailored to the property, transaction and client requirements. It may include review of the building fabric and services, available statutory and technical records, lease or occupational considerations, significant risks, repair priorities, anticipated expenditure and the need for specialist investigations.
Technical Due Diligence remains subject to the agreed scope, access, available information and any specialist investigations required.
A specific problem or concern sits with Scope Inspection. A specific requirement or proposed change sits with Scope Survey. For an overall professional opinion on the building, start with a Commercial Building Survey.
Lease Advisory
Building-consultancy advice on lease obligations and restrictions, and how they affect the property, proposed works and future liabilities. Licence to Alter advice sits here where the question is whether proposed alterations can be consented and on what terms, as a building-consultancy matter. Material points of legal interpretation may require confirmation from the client’s solicitor.
Planned Maintenance Strategy
Advice on repair priorities, likely sequence of work, and what to investigate before money is committed. The emphasis is strategy for the building, not a production maintenance spreadsheet.
Reinstatement Cost Assessment
An estimate of rebuilding cost for insurance, on a stated basis. It is not dilapidations, and it is not a market valuation. It remains available where instructed; it does not outrank Technical Due Diligence, Lease Advisory or planned-maintenance strategy.
Questions clients ask
These questions and answers explain our general approach. The scope of our services is agreed for each instruction.
Core Advisory
What does MGRA mean by Advisory?
Technical property advice: risk, options, obligations or next steps before a client commits to works, a purchase, occupation or another instruction.
When is Advisory different from Inspection or Surveying?
Inspection starts with a defined problem, defect or question. Surveying leads with Scope Survey and Commercial Building Survey. Advisory uses that information, where it exists, to advise on what to do next. Technical Due Diligence is Advisory advice supporting an acquisition, lease or investment decision. It is not merely a more detailed inspection.
What is Technical Due Diligence?
Technical Due Diligence combines a comprehensive inspection with a review of the available technical and property information, to support an acquisition, lease or investment decision. See Technical Due Diligence.
What does a Technical Due Diligence report provide?
It brings together the inspection findings, available documentation and specialist information to explain the property’s principal technical risks, liabilities and likely expenditure. The report is proportionate to the transaction and records material limitations, assumptions and recommended further action.
What is a Reinstatement Cost Assessment (RCA)?
An estimate of rebuilding cost for insurance, on a stated basis. It is not dilapidations, and it is not a market valuation.
Property strategy
Can MGRA help owners improve an industrial site or prepare it for letting?
Yes. We work with owners and the wider professional team to review the existing site and its intended future use. This can include clarifying demised areas and access arrangements, updating lease plans, and preparing marketing plans and indicative layouts.
We develop these options into proposed plans and a coordinated brief for planning, design and phased improvements, including yards, surfacing, fencing, lighting and services.
Can MGRA assist with insurance claims and reinstatement following flood, fire or a break-in?
Yes. We help owners assess and record damage, define repairs and making-good works, and coordinate reinstatement following flood, fire or a break-in. We work alongside insurers, loss adjusters and specialist contractors, preparing specifications and supporting tendering and delivery.
Can MGRA help owners adapt an existing building to their requirements?
Yes. We review the existing layout, how the building is used and what the owner needs to achieve. We prepare space-planning options and proposed layouts, considering circulation, access, operational needs and opportunities to make better use of the available space. The agreed layout can then inform the design, specifications and delivery of alterations.
Can MGRA help before a refurbishment or fit-out is designed?
Yes. We can advise on constraints, condition, lease or consent issues, and what information is needed before layouts are fixed.
What is planned maintenance advice?
Advice on repair priorities, likely sequence of work, and what to investigate before money is committed.
When does Advisory become Design or Project Services?
When the work moves from advice about what to consider, into preparing the design or administering delivery. That can sit in one agreed appointment.
Lease Advisory
What does MGRA mean by Lease Advisory?
Building-consultancy advice on lease obligations and restrictions, and how they affect the property, proposed works and future liabilities.
What is the difference between Lease Advisory and Dilapidations?
Dilapidations assesses alleged condition breaches and remedies. Lease Advisory looks more widely at how lease obligations affect a property decision.
Can MGRA review lease issues before a property is bought, sold or altered?
Yes. We review the practical building implications of the documents supplied: repairing exposure, alteration restrictions, maintenance responsibility and handback.
Related appointments
Does MGRA undertake Principal Designer appointments?
Yes. MGRA may act as CDM Principal Designer, Building Regulations Principal Designer, or both. See Principal Designer appointments.
What happens if the instruction spans more than one MGRA service?
Several services may form one agreed appointment. The appointment sets which outputs are included.