New lease grants, the standard trigger
The most common moment to instruct is the period immediately preceding execution of a new commercial lease. The schedule is prepared, agreed between the parties' surveyors where appropriate, and appended to the executed lease.
Lease renewals
A lease renewal, whether contracted out or under the 1954 Act, is a fresh opportunity to fix the documented condition. The condition of the property at renewal will differ from the condition at original grant, and the renewal schedule should reflect that.
Assignment and underletting
On assignment, the incoming tenant inherits the existing lease, and with it, the original Schedule of Condition (if any). On underletting, a fresh schedule is often prepared between landlord-tenant and tenant-undertenant. Both events benefit from specialist input early.
When it is too late
The single most common timing mistake is instructing a Schedule of Condition only when the dilapidations claim arrives. By that point, the tenant has been in occupation for years, condition has changed, and there is no contemporaneous baseline against which to measure the repairing obligation.