landlord pulled out of lease

[sambo]

Me and my boyfriend took the big decision of renting a shop and trading in cards and gifts so off we went to see our bank manager as we had found what we were to believe the perfect shop and as we didnt see any problems so purchased hundreds of pounds in stock as we were approved the loan this all started back in September and we are now paying monthly repayments on the loan We have since then been back and forwards to our solicitors regarding the lease and there solicitors have been extremely slow in replying to anything our solicitor had sent mostly taking 3 weeks to reply to a fax.

We have been in contact with the shop owners son who has been pretty good on the phone stating that he had shelving and stock that we could buy off him for the shop and that he was sorry everything was going slow and that he would have a word with his solicitors, last week we were supposed to meet this man to arrange price on shelves and to get back door key off him to place all of our stock in the shop, but he didnt arrive so we phoned him and he said that his solicitors were not happy with the contract that our solicitor had sent back to them stating that a few things needed to be sorted out first before we actually signed the lease as we had seen the draft lease a week before anyway.

Well we have had a phone call today off our solicitor stating that they now want to sell the shop so basically we can go jump and we are now out of pocket by a lot of money and are still liable to pay back the loan that we had from the bank my question is can they be allowed to do this as i think this is morally wrong and they shouldnt be allowed to do this i would have thought there would be a law somewhere that states if a lease is broken before its started we should be allowed some sort of compensation.

Please somebody give me some good advice as we honestly dont know which way to turn now.

[Poppy]

Yes, it's annoying when someone backs out of a property deal. However, you have not signed or exchanged contracts yet.

Have you started repaying a loan? Have you tried contacting the lender to ask them to hold back the money?

At the end of the day, you cannot force the owner to rent to you.

[yeahbutno]

I agree it sounds very unfair in many ways, but as Poppy says until you have actually signed anything, there IS no lease.

I recently came across an appalling case where a chap had been running a business on a commercial lease for a few years, and sold it to a fairly naive & unsuspecting guy who assumed there would be no hitches. The seller was emigrating (!) and spending a lot of time out of the UK. The buyer foolishly paid upfront for the business and lease and agreed to wait for the assignment of the lease into his own name. The landlord had no idea of the arrangement, and had also been unaware of various major breaches of the lease by the original tenant, who by this time had disappeared off the face of the earth. The upshot was that the landlord successfully regained possession of the building, and the hapless buyer was left with no business, no premises, and a 25 grand bank-loan.