The percentages nobody wants to touch
The business park has twelve units, three service charge schedules and a car park. The apportionment spreadsheet was set up by a surveyor who left years ago. Since then, two units were combined for one tenant, one was split in two, a mezzanine was added and the estate schedule was changed to exclude the unit with its own access road.
Each change was made by editing a cell. Now the estate schedule adds up to slightly more than a hundred per cent, the lift schedule includes a unit on the ground floor that has no access to it, and nobody is sure which version of the areas the percentages were based on.
Why apportionment drifts
Apportionment is simple in principle: split each cost fairly among those who benefit. In a real multi-let building it is a layered set of decisions.
| Change in the building | What should happen to apportionment |
|---|---|
| Unit split in two | Both new units need shares; the original share retired |
| Units merged | Shares combined for the new unit, with the date |
| Remeasurement | Areas updated, every schedule recalculated from that date |
| Schedule changed | Units added or removed from that schedule only |
| Weighting agreed | Weighting factor stored, with the reason |
| Landlord takes space | Landlord share shown, not spread across tenants |
When all of that is done by editing cells, no one can see what changed, when or why, and every downstream figure inherits the error.
Where wrong percentages show up
In budgets, where tenants are asked for the wrong amount on account. In reconciliations, where the totals do not reconcile to the cost ledger and someone spends days finding out why. In disputes, where a tenant's surveyor asks how their share was arrived at, and the honest answer is a spreadsheet nobody fully understands. And in voids, where the landlord ends up carrying more or less than it should.
The apportionment register we build
- Each building's units, measured areas and schedules are held as records, not cells, each with an effective date.
- Shares are calculated from areas and any weightings your surveyor has set, rather than typed in.
- Every schedule is checked on save: shares must total a hundred per cent, and a unit cannot be in a schedule your team has marked it out of.
- Changes such as splits, merges and remeasurements are made through a guided step that retires the old units and creates the new ones from a date, so history is preserved.
- Each change records who made it and why, with any surveyor's note or measurement report attached.
- Budgets, quarterly demands and year-end reconciliations all read their percentages from the register for the relevant period.
- A statement for any tenant shows exactly how their share of each schedule is worked out.
We usually start by importing the existing spreadsheet as it stands and running the checks against it. That first run is often the most useful hour of the project, because it lists the schedules that do not total, the units that appear where they should not and the areas that do not match the last measurement report. Your surveyor decides how each one is corrected, and the corrections are recorded as dated changes rather than silent edits.
How costs should be split, and what weightings are fair, remains your surveyor's professional judgement. The register stores those decisions and applies them consistently.
What your team gets from it
When a unit is split, the change is made once and every figure that depends on it follows. Reconciliations tie out because the shares add up. When a tenant's surveyor asks how a share was calculated, you send the statement. When a new manager takes over the building, the history is there instead of in someone's head.
Recognise any of these?
- Nobody is confident the apportionment spreadsheet is current.
- A schedule adds up to more or less than it should.
- Units have been split, merged or remeasured since the percentages were set.
- You cannot say when or why a tenant's percentage changed.
- Reconciliations do not tie to the cost ledger without manual adjustment.