need your opinions on this matter, commercial lease

[virus]

hi,
i purchase a business on freehold about 25 years ago. I ran the business for 10 years and my health deteriorated, so i decided to lease the business out for 15 years so my wife can run it with my children when they are older.
The lease expires in April 2006 and the tennants wanted to extend the lease which was not granted, so now they want to take the name and phone number of the business with them to their new premisis.
The name and number has always been with the business even before i bought it and it is well known in the community where it serves.
Are the tennants legally obliged to do that?
thanks

[SteveP]

Freehold is an estate in land. You cannot have a "freehold" business only the freehold interest in land (and the buildings upon it). Leasehold is an estate in land, the same applies.

Businesses are either sole traders, and you can't own another sole trader.

Or

Partnerships (simple ones or Lomited Liability Partnerships) in which case you own some part of it if you are a member of the partnership.

Or

Limited companies, in which case it has shareholders and if you own some shares you own part of it.

or

Public Limited Companies, essentially the same as above but bigger with shares traded publically.

Finally, there are franchises which can be any of the above but with an agreement to operate under a certain name and with other conditions which will be set out in a contract (called a franchise agreement).

So the place to start is by asking what type of firm was it and whether there was a franchise agreement.

If you are just saying "I used to run a pub/garage/brothel called "Freds Place" but gave up and leased the premises to someone else who carried on with Freds Place over the door and now they are going to open up as "freds place" somewhere else you wil have a hell of a job stopping them. But if you own a company called Freds Place Ltd they can't start one called Freds Place Ltd, still there is nothing to stop them having another place called "freds place".

If you have registered trade marks they cannot use them and if you have copyrights they can't infringe them.

It is thier telephone number, even if it used to be yours, so they are entitled to take it with them. If you had wanted to keep it you should have thought of that before.