Becoming a Commercial Guardian

How does being a commercial guardian work?

If you are looking for an affordable, flexible workspace, consider becoming a commercial guardian. Through guardianship, you get access to unique opportunities to find the flexible, low-budget workspace you need in a variety of unique locations.

As part of the VPS Group, we have access to vacant real-estate holdings all over the UK and are actively seeking enthusiastic start-ups like yours to utilise these vacant spaces on a temporary basis. Often, these opportunities arise in buildings where you will be able to meet other enthusiastic (start-up) companies just like yours. If nothing else, you will have the following in common:

The initiative to think outside the box
An instinct to seize opportunities to save money on regular rental payments

The money you save can then be used to invest further in what really matters – your business!

"Never expected that becoming a guardian would be so valuable to my business"

How do I get started?

Have a browse through our list of currently available properties to see if you think anything would be a good fit for you. Register now for free and we will contact you to schedule an appointment for a viewing as soon as a suitable property becomes available. We will accompany you at the viewing and walk you through everything that could potentially become your temporary workspace. After that, it’s up to you to decide whether the property is somewhere you could see yourself (and your team) working.

If you choose to proceed, and you meet our criteria, it will work like this:

We will present a licence agreement for you to sign.
Once you have put pen to paper, you will be given the keys and you will start paying your affordable licence fee from that day forward.
When the property owner serves us notice to vacate the property, we will inform all guardians via email of the date the property must be emptied by. The notice period will be 28 days.

When your guardianship comes to an end

When vacating the space, it is your responsibility to ensure all personal belongings are removed from the area. All shared items from communal areas must also be removed. This needs to be done before the morning of the property hand back, and we will advise and support throughout the process as needed.

We will require at least one guardian to attend the property on the day of the hand back. We will meet them there for a final inspection of the space, and if everything is satisfactory then the security deposit will be released. If there are any concerns about damage or other issues with the space, we will discuss them with you and we may need to pay for repairs using your security deposit.

Our pledge to you

We always aim to offer existing guardians a new workspace in a different building, but we cannot always guarantee that a suitable space will be available immediately. We will endeavour to contact you during the termination period to inform you of opportunities to transfer elsewhere, in order to minimise any disruption to your business from the loss of your existing workspace. We want your business to succeed, and will always go the extra mile to support in any way we can.