Yes. Aqqord Limited is authorised and regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority as a licensed body (SRA ID 8008171, company number 11726777), and we hold professional indemnity insurance that meets the SRA's requirements. You can check our entry on the SRA's register. We operate in England and Wales only.
Aqqord is authorised and regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority. The negotiation you would expect the solicitors to have has already been done, so you don't need a solicitor to use Aqqord, and plenty of people complete a lease with us without instructing one.
If you'd still like one, you can give them access to the heads of terms and the lease on the platform. They can review the lease and propose changes to the terms on your behalf, and once both parties agree a change, the lease wording updates automatically to match.
No. Aqqord doesn't advise either party and doesn't act as your solicitor. We take the heads of terms you and the other party have agreed and turn them into a lease. If you want advice on whether the terms are right for you, speak to your own solicitor before you commit.
No, because we're not advising either side. Both parties use Aqqord for the same purpose: turning a deal they've already agreed between themselves into a properly drafted lease. We're not arguing one party's corner against the other, so the conflict that comes from advising both sides doesn't arise. And the lease itself is even-handed, drafted on a balanced footing that's fair to both. Both parties accept the same terms and conditions.
Neither. The lease is drafted on a balanced, market-standard footing that's fair to both sides. It's built from the terms you and the other party agreed between you, so it reflects your deal rather than tilting it towards whoever instructed a solicitor first.
Yes. The documents are based on precedents originally commissioned by the British Property Federation, which have then been tailored by solicitors with decades of experience to make sure the final documents are accurate and fair to both parties.
The wording was negotiated in advance by two solicitors, one acting for a landlord and one acting for a tenant. The outcome is a final document that has effectively been negotiated in the marketplace and will be acceptable to all parties.
Because Aqqord is SRA-regulated, we carry professional indemnity insurance, the same as any solicitor's firm. So every lease has that insurance behind it, and you have the protection of a formal complaints procedure and SRA oversight.
Aqqord's fee for a lease is £375 + VAT per party. That's £750 + VAT per lease, split 50/50 or however the parties agree, and charged only once the lease is agreed, so there are no abortive fees.
If either party instructs a solicitor, the solicitor charges separately.
Then you don't pay. There are no abortive fees: nothing upfront, nothing part-way through, nothing for drafting or negotiation. The fee only kicks in once your lease is agreed. Start a draft, change your mind for any reason, walk away: it costs you nothing.
There's no subscription either, so you can try it on a single letting, or start a free draft from a past deal's heads of terms to see what the lease looks like.
No extra Aqqord charges. The only other costs are paid to others, not to us: any SDLT or LTT due, the Land Registry fee where the lease needs registering, and £5 to a solicitor if the tenant makes a statutory declaration.
Signing up takes moments. The heads of terms are negotiated online in real time, so they can be agreed as quickly as you and the other side can agree them. Any documents that are needed can be uploaded to the platform, and once the heads of terms are agreed, the final documents are created in seconds.
Aqqord adds an SRA-regulated platform, up-to-date wording drafted by senior commercial property solicitors to be fair to both sides, and the 1954 Act warning notice and declaration. It also guides both parties through signing and completing the lease, so execution and completion are done correctly. Both parties work from the same lease, and changes go through the heads of terms, so drafts don't go back and forth with the other side's solicitor.
Yes. A renewal on Aqqord isn't a copy of the old lease. It's a fresh lease drafted from the new terms, and the clause library is kept up to date, so it will reflect the law as it stands. Your accrued rights are preserved.
Yes. Once the parties have signed them, the documents are legally binding in England and Wales. Electronic signatures are recognised in law here under the Electronic Communications Act 2000 and the Electronic Identification and Trust Services for Electronic Transactions Regulations 2016, as amended after the UK left the EU (SI 2019/89). Each signed document is sealed with a digital certificate carrying long-term validation (LTV) time stamps, so the signatures can still be checked years later, and it comes with an audit trail showing who did what and when, with their IP address where available. Our signed leases satisfy Land Registry requirements.
Any Stamp Duty Land Tax (SDLT), or Land Transaction Tax (LTT) for property in Wales, is your responsibility. Aqqord can assist.
The system will calculate the tax payable for your approval and can make the return to HMRC or the Welsh Revenue Authority, based on the agreed heads of terms. You pay the amount due directly.
Leases granted for a term of 7 years or less do not need to be registered at Land Registry, unless they take effect more than three months after they are granted. Leases granted for longer than 7 years, and leases granted more than three months before the lease term begins, are registrable at Land Registry by the tenant. Registration is your responsibility, and Aqqord can assist: you can register your lease with the Land Registry through the Aqqord platform and pay the amount due directly to Land Registry via a direct link which Aqqord will supply.
Our leases are drafted on a balanced, market-standard footing that's fair to both landlord and tenant. You can read the main terms on our What's in our leases? page.
Office, retail and industrial leases, for part or the whole of a building (and, for industrial premises, a unit on an estate), plus a licence for alterations. Which contracts can I create?
Yes. If you choose to contract out, the platform produces the warning notice and the tenant’s declaration, simple or statutory. Dealing with the 1954 Act
If a lender has a legal charge registered against the landlord's title to the property, the landlord should ask the lender for consent to the grant of the lease.
Aqqord can help. When you set the lease up, you can ask for an application to your lender for consent to the lease. Once the heads of terms are agreed, Aqqord prepares the application from the agreed terms and, if you'd like us to, emails it to your lender, who replies to you.
If the landlord’s property is leasehold, the landlord’s own lease may require the freeholder’s consent to the grant of the Aqqord lease. The landlord should ask the freeholder for consent as early as possible.
All documents are stored on a secure server located in the UK and backed up off site on a regular basis. You can of course download them and store them with your other documents.