Leasing Commercial Shop lease problems.

[AppletonE]

Hi all :-)

We are in the process of renting a shop for our Lettings Agency.

The shop consists of ground floor with garden and a basement.

We are 3 drafts into our lease (back and fourth through our solicitors and the landlords solicitors) and there are a few points on the lease which we are slightly worried about, and was wondering if anyone here could help us with the situation...

In all honestly, the landlord and his solicitors have been very unhelpful through the entire process so far. They have not answered many basic questions that we have asked by simply ignoring them.

We are now (2 months later) at a stage where we almost have an agreement apart from the following points...

1. There was a worry that damp may be present in the shop. The landlord agreed to have someone look at the damp and said that he has done so. He will not give us the report, the qualifications, name or company that he used to carry out the report as 'there was no damp found'. Is this normal?

2. the current wording of the indemnity states that “The Tenant shall make good to the Landlord on demand, and indemnify the Landlord against, all losses, damages, costs, expenses and claims arising from any breach of the terms of this deed.”

This basically means that we are liable for any charges incurred by the LANDLORD breaching the agreement. Is this normal?

3. The landlord can unreasonaly withhold us from (1) connecting to service media, (2) attaching any item to the building to carry out repairs to the property that are required or permitted by the lease or (3) making non-structural alterations to the property. This seems utterly ridiculous. Is this normal?

The reason i am asking if these are normal causes is because if we do not go ahead with this, will we find these similar clauses in other commercial leases that we look at?

Thank you so much in advance
Hav :-)

[MrJohnnyB]

2. the current wording of the indemnity states that “The Tenant shall make good to the Landlord on demand, and indemnify the Landlord against, all losses, damages, costs, expenses and claims arising from any breach of the terms of this deed.”

This basically means that we are liable for any charges incurred by the LANDLORD breaching the agreement. Is this normal? I believe the normal wording would be "...claims arising from any breach of the tenants covenants"

3. The landlord can unreasonaly withhold us from (1) connecting to service media, (2) attaching any item to the building to carry out repairs to the property that are required or permitted by the lease or (3) making non-structural alterations to the property. This seems utterly ridiculous. Is this normal? No, most would require landlords consent, which should not be unreasonably witheld or delayed

Have answered 2 & 3. I personally believe that if the landlord makes a representation that the property is free from damp, that if damp proved to be there then you could have him for misrepresentation. It should also be covered by your CPSE enquiries.

What has your solicitor said about the other points?