“Brexit: The real estate clock is ticking!”

With the announcement of the British Prime Minister Theresa May to initiate the British EU exit procedure by the end of March 2017 at the latest, companies considering or planning to move branches from London to a continental EU metropolis have now reached the moment to make real estate decisions.

This is certainly not an "early start”. On the contrary, the period of now 29 months until the United Kingdom leaves the European Union corresponds to the planning and realisation period required for developing projects that meet demand. Especially in case of large-scale relocations, e.g. in case of headquarters with a space requirement in the four-figure to five-figure range, tenants often prefer new buildings ideally suited to their specific needs to solutions involving existing buildings, even if there are any offers meeting demand and market requirements to begin with.

Accordingly, now is the time to prepare and make specific location decisions in order to then commission established local real estate experts to make the market supply in question, including potential new construction projects, transparent in accordance with the individual search profile. This is the only way to start a selection and negotiation process in the near future and to ensure that the premises can be used by the end of March 2019.

At the same time, it is necessary to have an expert assess the operational real estate situation for cost optimisation purposes now, also in London, in order to, for example, comply with time limits regarding objections to automatic contract renewals and/or options or for termination of contracts without incurring undesirable surplus times.

Many companies, especially those without explicit own real estate know-how, are often not aware of the long preparatory periods for project realisations and should treat this as another reason to involve real estate service providers in their location dispositions at an early stage already. Because one thing is certain: Purchase or renting decisions made at short notice under constraints and time pressure rarely offer the best solution but are usually less than ideal and also expensive! The same is true for procrastinators and those who conclude contracts just in time.