During COVID our shop lease lapsed and we just carried on paying the previously agreed amount.
Then in 2023 we had an email urging us to sign the new lease with an increased rent.
Here is part of the email.
"I have agreed with her that she will resend the lease to you. Please can you have this signed as a matter of urgency.
I would prioritise the signing of the new lease as soon as possible as external repair works to the common parts are imminent and your current lease has no cap. For your information the cheapest quote for the external repair works is in excess of £100,000 and your percentage contribution would be 10%."
We signed the lease and over 2 years later no works have been done
Hopefully we will retire this year leaving 2 years left on the lease.
If we hadn't signed the lease we would be able to leave whenever we wanted.
We only signed the lease to protect ourselves from the costs of the " imminent "works.
Does the fact that no work has been done give us wriggle room to get out of the lease?
Does the fact that no work has been done give us wriggle room to get out of the lease?
So if the work had been done you'd be £10k or more out of pocket?
You can leave a lease at any time but are liable for the remaining rent. Is that less than £10k? If so may be better to give notice now rather than let them start work in six months time, give you a bill and you still have the remainder of the lease to pay for.
The other option is to find a new tenant yourselves to take on the premises sooner. You'd need your landlords agreement on the new tenant though.
As to whether you can break the lease early because work wasn't done as discussed - that's a matter for a solicitor - I'd guess your chances are slim.
IANAL! 🙂
Does the fact that no work has been done give us wriggle room to get out of the lease?
Very likely not, but it depends on what's written in the lease you've signed. Devil / detail.
My legal advice is speak to a solicitor in person, with your lease.
That'll be 50 guineas please.
Does the fact that no work has been done give us wriggle room to get out of the lease?
Very doubtful (maybe unless that work was specifically part of the lease)- but IANAL either.
IANAL and like others suggest you (or a qualified person) need to read the fine print of the contract, what it says about any remedial work, but also about whether there's a landlord obligation to keep the property in a good state.
And hence whether that is a bit catch 22 for them - if the need for the remedial work was urgent as they said in their 'sales pitch' to you then it should have been done (with the caution that you might then end up hooked for your 10% - out of interest who gets the 90% - the landlord?) - and with that they've breached contract in failing to keep the property in a good state.
Or, if it doesn't really need doing and certainly wasn't imminent then they have pressured you into a longer lease by misrepresenting the situation, again IANAL but is this unfair contracts or similar? It's on you to read and understand the contracts and obligation, but also on them to be honest about what they are selling.
If your lease lapsed (so you didn't have a current lease) why would you be liable for anything? Sounds like a landlords was desperate for you to commit to a new lease in the heart of a pandemic. If the Landlord is now responsible for the the external repairs under the new lease - start pushing for him to get on with £100k's worth of work, if he is reluctant he may allow you to surrender your new lease in return for not pushing for him to fulfill his obligations.
If your lease lapsed (so you didn't have a current lease) why would you be liable for anything?
Fair question. IDK but is the fact they continued paying rent on the existing terms akin to extending it - in the absence of new terms, old ones apply?
and if so then the decision to sign a new lease, which caps their liability to any costs of remedial work (prior lease was uncapped) seems sensible, only made a bad decision because Landlord hasn't done the work (and also that the length is now longer than they want, but was presumably acceptable at the time)
In general I don't like concept of wriggling out of contracts, over technicalities, but in this case if Landlord has 'fibbed' about the urgency of remedial work to get them to enter the contract, then I guess all's fair.
give us wriggle room to get out of the lease?
I'm not sure I would rely on it. Regardless of the reasons you signed the lease, you still signed it. Is there a clause in it that allows you to give up the lease unless remedial works are carried out? I reckon your landlord would probs. have some grounds (and I'll bet it's in the lease somewhere) that they can charge you a settlement to get out of it early.
Two things: Thing one: How friendly are you with your landlord? It may be that you can just have a conversation with them first and see the lay of the land. Thing two: If you can get someone wiling to take over the lease, that may be helpful for you to escape.
Like all the other posters so far IANAL, get some proper advice.
Landlords are friendly. We've been here over 30 years and they would be able to let our shop for more if we left.
We just want to know our options if they want us to fulfill our lease.
The store room of our shop is crumbling to bits. I've had to put up an inside roof and guttering to stop our stock getting wet when it rains.
Next door they have got all kinds of horrible stuff growing . They've never done any maintenance in the last 30 years.
IANAL! 🙂
I'm as open-minded as the next man, but what you do in your free time isn't relevant to the OP's question