How it works

Where the data comes from

We read published public records. Sole traders and individuals are removed before anything else happens.

The lease clock

For each office we work out when its lease is likely to end or reach a break.

• Recorded (planned). When we add HM Land Registry’s data, leases on the register will take their dates from it and carry a solid grade mark recorded.
• Estimated. Most smaller offices are on leases of seven years or less, which aren’t registered anywhere public. For these we take the date the occupier became liable for business rates and assume a typical lease of five years with a break at three. These leads carry a dashed grade mark estimated.
• Held back. Once an occupier has been at an address longer than the assumed lease, an estimate has no basis, so we hold the lead back rather than guess.
• The window. We only offer leads whose next break or expiry is within 18 months.

How leads are scored

Every office lead gets a score out of 100 from four parts. The weights are the same on every sheet. School triggers are scored by kind and age instead (below).

Timing. An expiry 12 to 18 months away scores highest, because that is when a move is decided. A break scores at most half as much, and most while the decision is still ahead: notice to use a break is usually due 3 to 6 months before it, so a break 9 to 18 months away scores highest and one under 6 months away very little. Breaks are worth less because a move at one is much less likely. In MSCI’s UK Lease Events Review (2019), fewer than half of office leases had a break and about a quarter of office tenants used theirs, while three quarters of office rent reaching expiry fell vacant. An estimated break may not exist at all, and the call sheet says so.

Size. Offices with a rateable value of £10,000 or more score higher than smaller ones, and offices outside the size range you set never reach your sheet.

Sector. From what the company does, as registered at Companies House. Professional services, finance and technology score highest; construction, transport, care and personal services lowest. A company we can’t match exactly is scored as neutral.

Grade. Recorded dates score above estimates. Today that means empty offices dated by their council list’s own empty date; registered leases will join them once we add them.

What we leave out

• Sole traders and individuals.
• Entries a council withholds as personal data.
• Empty premises, from lease leads: an office empty for six months or more can be a lead of its own (below).
• Serviced-office operators, which we spot by their holding more than three offices in one council area.
• Premises that aren’t offices.
• Offices below the size you set, judged by rateable value.
• Companies that Companies House shows as dissolved, insolvent or being struck off.
• Companies with a winding-up petition, liquidation, administration or receivership in The Gazette in the last 90 days.

Empty offices

For firms that refurbish offices for landlords. An office that has stood empty for six months or more is one its owner may refurbish to let.

• One lead per building. A landlord’s empty suites at one address come as a single lead, with how many there are and their total rateable value.
• How long empty. From the date the council’s list says the office became empty, or failing that the date its ratepayer became liable. Offered from six months empty until three years.
• Who to call. The ratepayer the council names, usually the owner.

Only from councils whose terms allow it. You choose whether to receive empty offices, lease events, or both.

School triggers

For firms that want education work. Schools own their buildings, so there is no lease to count down. The moments that matter are new money and a new head.

• Funding award. A school or college that has just won Condition Improvement Fund money for building work, from the Department for Education’s published outcomes.
• New head teacher. A school whose head has changed since our last weekly check of the Department for Education’s register.

Each trigger comes with the head teacher’s name and the school’s website, as the register publishes them, and a search for its number. Triggers are exclusive like every lead, and stop being offered a year after they happen.

A funding award scores 80 and a new head 70, each losing 5 for every full three months that pass, to no lower than 55.

Exclusive, and how we keep it that way

Every lead you receive is written to a ledger before your sheet is produced. A lead goes to one firm only, and you never receive the same lead twice. If the ledger can’t be written, no sheet is produced, so a lead can’t go out twice by mistake.

Because leads are exclusive, each area can only support a few firms, so we check what’s available before you start.

On the call sheet

Each lead arrives with the groundwork done:

• The reason to call, and how long is left before the lease ends or reaches a break.
• Who to ask for: the company’s directors, from Companies House, with its headcount from its latest accounts.
• The office’s energy rating, where its certificate matches exactly, with offices rated F or G marked as a reason to call.
• An opening question and one to follow it, which ask rather than tell, because the dates are estimates.
• Where to look: a search for the company’s phone number, its Companies House page and a map of where it is.

Every sheet downloads as a spreadsheet or a CSV file for your CRM, and prints as a call list with boxes to tick.

Your verdicts

Each lead has three buttons: Pursue, Not for us and Already moved. We use them to see which kinds of lead turn into real conversations.

Questions