Sruggling to pay rent - Can landord enter property?

[Rotor]

Hi

Ive got what I think is a regular lease on retail premises , my business is making no money and Im 4 months behind on the rent , I pay three months in advance and currently owe £4k (£8k pa) ,I paid a £2k deposit when I moved in plus three months in advance , I gave notice last year and can get out at the end of September 2014 if payments are upto date ,the landlord is now not surprisingly starting to get a little arsey ,

I am not sure how to deal with this , the only leverage I have is one of the rooms is unusable due to the roof leaking very badly and this has also caused stock damage , if they go legal can they just enter the property or will I get notice via a county court summons ?

Thanks in advance

Rotor

 

[deniser]

They can normally just go in and change the locks while the premises are empty.

They won't do this though if they think they can get the money from you unless they have a new tenant lined up.

 

[Rotor]

They have asked me for a payment plan which Im putting together , Im not sure I`ll be able to pay the amount they are expecting per month.

There is stock and displays in the premises which far exceed the money I owe , my main concern is they may seize these goods and sell them for a pittance , I have not paid for all of this stock either so technically I dont own it all , how is it best to deal with this ? Ive been told by a friend to put stickers on all items stating who is the legal owner , is this viable ?

 

[Vectis]

As part of, or instead of, the payment plan (which I assume is basically to bring your overdue rent payments up to date) why not make them an offer to buy yourself out of the lease?

How much can you offer? What's the value of the stock if you sold it off asap? If that covers the overdue rent, and maybe a bit more, offer them that in return for releasing you from the lease (but get a solicitor to organise the surrender of the lease if you get that far). Plead poverty (i.e. show them some poor management accounts and projections) and imply that it would be better for them to at least accept your offer of paying the rent up to date than have you go broke and them get virtually nothing at all.

We did this a successfully number of years ago, although the pleading poverty part was stretched over a longer period.

Many landlords will probably take the offer of at least some money now rather than possibly nothing at all further down the line, but make sure it's tied into the early surrender of your lease.

I'm assuming here that you didn't give any personal guarantees?

 

[kulture]

I am surprised that no-one else has picked up on your first sentence. "I THINK". With commercial properties this is not good enough. The very first thing to do is see a solicitor and take with you your lease. This lease will determine what your options and possible solutions are. For all we know you may not have a lease. You may not be tied into any term and may be able to give a months notice and leave. So teh very first thing to do is find out if you have a lease and what liabilities you have under it.

 

[Spongebob]

It sounds like you will be personally liable for the rent up to the end of September. The leaking roof is irrelevent, I'm afraid.

If you are sure that the value of the stock exceeds the rent owing, one option is to do a moonlight flit and sell the stock off on ebay or at car boot sales etc. Landlords are notoriously trigger-happy when it comes to sending in bailiffs when rent is owing. You might well be better off getting out immediately and retaining control of the situation.