28 SERVICE CHARGE
Service Charge Code – Cleaning
This month as part of its series on the updated Service Charge Code Shopping Centre takes a look at cleaning
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ecause cleaning is traditionally one of the hardest- squeezed items on the service charge bill there is often less contention about it – even with the new Service
Charge Code. Many centres now outsource cleaning but some continue to keep in-house teams. In either case cleaning remains critical. Customers don’t always
‘see’ cleaners but when something isn’t clean they take note. And underscoring a dirty mall can be a sub-textual comment about a centre’s ethos. Jeanette Chalmers, senior associate at law firm Dundas & Wilson, says cleaning issues are fairly straightforward. “Value for money and the requirement that landlords should
not profit from the supply of services are key principles of the new Service Charge Code,” she says. “Landlords should be able to recover the proper and reasonable costs of cleaning services but should not seek to ‘clean up’ through the charging regime. In all cases, the Code requires that the quality of service should be appropriate to
the location, use and character of the property – an industrial estate will not warrant the same ‘Kim and Aggie’ treatment as a shiny new office block.”
She adds that cleaning can be performance benchmarked,
thereby giving everybody additional clarity. “Tenants will want to see that the frequency of cleaning is
appropriate and that it is being carried out cost-effectively and to an acceptable standard, all of which criteria are easy to measure,” she says. “Cleaning is one of the less controversial categories of service charge costs as most tenants view a hygienic environment as a must-have.” “Cleaning contracts have been fairly tight – salaries have been
held,” agrees John Gray of John Gray Service Charges, a leading service charge expert who represents landlords and tenants. Gray generally sees cleaning at about 15 to 20 per cent of the service charge bill. Gray highlights two trends in reducing cleaning charges –
SHOPPING CENTRE March 2012
www.shopping-centre.co.uk
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