LL Has sold property I still have 2 yr lease

[kelly]

Hi, I wonder if anyone can offer me advice, I have a 5 year FRI lease with 2 years still to run, my landlord has sold the property on to a property developer however my solicitor has told me I still pay the rent to the old landlord how does this work? I was hoping that this would be an opportunity for me to get out of the lease as I have a retail & internet business, it will come as no surprise to say that the retail outlet is next to useless to me and I really can't afford the rent as the shop creates hardly any income at all. I have asked the Landlord about sub letting the shop, he said fine do it, but I don't want to incurr huge solicitors costs are there any sub letting/lease agreements that I could download as an alternative to a £500 bill from the Solicitors to draw up a new lease? Also the Hot Water in the premises hasn't been working for the last 2 years I've asked the Landlord on several occasions to fix it to no avail, is he responsible for this? Also sorry to go on, when I first moved in the central heating shared the same boiler as the landlords flat above the shop he moved a year ago and left me with no heating apart from inadequate portable oil rads which are really expensive and not suitable I feel miffed because at first my rent included the heating now I'm still paying the same rent plus a huge heating bill.

Any comments would be appreciated.

[Editor]

Not sure why your solicitor has advised you to continue paying rent to the old landlord - perhaps the legal formalities have not been completed on the sale?
Perhaps it IS an opportunity to extract yourself from the lease if this is what you want - the new owner may want to develop? This would be done by negotiation with the new owner. You are still under contract to the new owner, just as you were under the old one.
I would strongly advise you not to skimp on the subletting - a cheap agreement may suffice for a standard AST, but it is rarely appropriate for a commercial letting.
You say you are on an FRI lease, which would imply that you are responsible for maintenance and repairs, unless the lease specifies otherwise. Generally, if you take over a premise with defects, on an FRI lease, they're your problem - it's up to you to check first.