BTCV has revealed that it saved £850,000 on a property lease after enlisting the help of CharityPropertyHelp, a service offering chartered surveyors to charities on a pro bono basis.

The charity had been struggling to negotiate rental terms on a property in Islington (pictured before refurbishment) after the local council transferred control to a management company, which demanded a hefty increase.

There was also a “very large” list of dilapidations with a high cumulative value that BTCV had failed to negotiate an agreement on.

“We engaged CharityPropertyHelp to negotiate on our behalf, and as a result negotiated down the dilapidations value and put the repairs in hand ourselves. We also secured a more preferential rental agreement,” said BTCV deputy chief executive Ron Fern.

The deal was completed in October last year, with total savings due to reach £850,000 by the end of the lease in 2017.

CharityPropertyHelp is funded by the Return Foundation, which was founded by chartered surveyor and philanthropist Geoffrey Barber.

He says he created the service after being asked to invest in a medical therapy centre project which was attempting to raise £3.25m.

“I said, ‘Before I invest, I want to look at the project’. I went along and had a look and said ‘the building’s wrong, the site’s wrong, everything’s wrong. If you got it right it could be done for £1m’.

“The response I got to that blew my mind, which was – ‘our fundraisers have raised £2m, go away’, which I found horrendous.”

He adds that a philanthropist working at Coutts had told him of a project which should have cost £6m but for which the charity involved was raising £22m.

“A lot of charities simply do not know where to get proper advice; they just don’t have the connections.”