Your vacant building, active again — with no cost to assess or operate.

No. You keep full legal title throughout. The arrangement is time-limited — typically 3–5 years with agreed break clauses — and the building is returned to you in its agreed condition at the end. Because the residential use is established via Class MA permitted development or a temporary "meanwhile use" permission, the original Use Class E commercial status is preserved: the building reverts to commercial use without any further action from you.

Lender consent forms part of the process and is something we plan for from the outset. We prepare a full lender information pack — covering the head lease structure, guaranteed rent schedule, reinstatement undertaking, sinking fund, and Four Square's governance and accounts. Most lenders find that a stable, income-generating, actively managed arrangement is a materially better position than a vacant building accruing liabilities and potentially deteriorating. We have navigated this process with both regional and national lenders.

Four Square takes full responsibility for the building's internal management, maintenance and the people living in it during the term. Your responsibilities are limited to the structure and exterior — consistent with a standard commercial head lease. Appropriate insurance for the residential use is arranged as part of the process. An occupied, actively managed building typically carries a lower risk profile than one left vacant: squatting, arson, water ingress and gradual deterioration are the real risks of prolonged vacancy.

No — and this distinction matters to us. The charitable business rates relief available to Four Square applies only where a building is wholly or mainly used for a charitable purpose, assessed on the actual physical extent of the use — not on intention. Four Square converts and occupies 100% of the building as community homes for people referred by the council. That full, genuine use is what makes the model work legally and operationally. The relief is a consequence of doing the real thing; it is never its purpose, and we are transparent with the billing authority about our use from the outset.

Evidence from comparable meanwhile use housing schemes across London does not support the view that a well-managed temporary residential use damages values or creates reputational issues. The opposite risk — a building left visibly vacant and deteriorating — is typically more damaging to both the asset and its surroundings. The exterior of the building remains commercial in character; the residential use is internal. Residents are housed occupants under the council's homelessness duty, not guardians or squatters, and the building is managed to a professional standard throughout.