NHS NOTIONAL RENT CASE STUDY – Widcombe surgery is located close to the centre of Bath in a prominent location on Widcombe Parade and has served the local community for many years.

To the surprise of the GP partners, the District Valuer (DV) proposed a decrease in their reimbursement rent when conducting the three yearly review in 2018 on behalf of the CCG.  GP partner Jonathan Chapman reflected, “the prospect of a drop of over 15% in our reimbursement rent was obviously a concern collectively for the partners, so we felt that we needed to be assured that the proposal was justified. As a result, we sought a second opinion on the matter.

We decided to approach a surveyor with a depth of experience in dealing with GP Surgery rent reimbursement, and approached Bryan Wootten of Wootten Dean Chartered Surveyors to challenge the DV assessment on our behalf”

Bryan inspected the surgery initially as part of his review of the DV assessment. Having completed his inspection and calculated the size of the surgery, it was not still not clear to him whether the DV assessment was correct.

“With surgeries that have previously been occupied for other uses,  it is sometimes the case that we need to consider the value of the surgery for alternative use and I felt that it would be prudent to adopt this approach in this instance. It was only after I had reviewed the assessment on this basis that I was confident that we could negotiate an increase in the reimbursement rent for the partners.”

At the end of the appeal process, Jonathan was extremely pleased at the outcome

“Bryan worked hard on our behalf and spent a considerable amount of time and effort checking all of the different relevant issues affecting the reimbursement rent. I was delighted when he reported back to us that he had been able to secure an increase in our rent reimbursement;

This was a welcome turnaround from the initial, unwelcome prospect of a significant drop in the reimbursement rent. We are extremely grateful for Bryan’s diligence and feel that we have benefitted from his considerable experience of dealing with reimbursement rent appeals on behalf of GP partners.”