Need some advice asap re very messy landlord breach of contract.

Debz87

Hi all, will try and keep this as short as possible but lots of info to fit in!

Myself and my partner have rented a property for equestrian business use with accommodation since 1st Jan 2015.

We went through an agent and the property was advertised for commercial use.

All was going ok until about a month and a half ago when the landlords received a letter from the council saying they needed to come and investigate the property we are living in after a neighbour had brought a few things to their attention. It used to be a club house and has been kitted out for living.

So we were a little concerned and the landlord told us we needed to meet up to get our stories straight which I immediately was not happy about and said I'd rather not be involved full stop as I got the feeling something dodgy was going on as he mentioned I shouldn't mention that I have a lease if asked.

So a few weeks went by and council guy came out and I kept out of the way but carried on working on the stable yard which is within the property.

Landlord later told me they thought they had won the guy over and said I was an employee running their yard for them.

Literally the following day the council called and said there was an enforcement notice issued on the property around 10 years previously and that the landlord would need to evict me within 3 months. When the council guy came out he didn't know there was an enforcement notice, only once he had got back to the office and someone else pointed it out to him.

This to me and my partner was a complete shock as we thought going through an agent meant these kind of things would have been checked out, the reason there was an enforcement notice in the first place was because there was never any planning permission granted for it to be a dwelling and someone got caught years ago resulting in the bathroom and kitchen fittings being removed to comply with the enforcement notice.

The landlord is claiming they had no idea there was an enforcement notice and that when they moved in 5 years ago nothing was ever mentioned by the solicitors.
They believe it got lost when the district council changed over to NPA and that it was the neighbour who reported someone living in the property that gave them a paper copy of the original enforcement notice (The guy has a massive grudge against the proerty due to a feud he had with previous owners and has huge big files of info on the place). The copy of the enforcement notice was a photocopy evidently, not pulled off of a computer.

There is an application to change the use of the property in 2009 from an office to a dwelling which was not granted as they were told it wasn't an office i the first place and then were told because it was within or outside the curtilidge of the house it was effectively like having a lodger so didn't need planning. (The main house is literally 50 yards away within the same area along with the stable yard).

It has since emerged that there was an enforcement notice on the main arena here which was granted retrospective if it was used by the owner of the house for their own personal horses.

There appears to be no permission to also run a livery yard from the site which is what I do along with training and teaching in the arena we have since found out is not meant to be used commercially.

We were able to find the info fairly easily when looking up the planning applications on the property so they obviously know a certain amount that they have chosen to ignore.

We were on a 6 month lease to then be extended to a 2 year so now the landlord has got out of it all by just saying they are going to end the contract after the 6 months which falls 2/3 weeks before the period we have to be evicted by (end of June).

Obviously we have spent a lot of money and time doing this place up to bring in business and we were happy to extend to the 2 year contract. Now we have put in all the time and effort for nothing as we have just got the business paying for itself and now have to leave, this is going to affect my business in a negative way as well as we have used personal savings to keep the place afloat, if we had known it would only last 6 months we wouldn't have bothered and if we had known there was no permission for the use it was advertised then we wouldn't have touched it with a barge pole.

We have been to CAB and spoken to a solicitor who have advised us to stop paying the rent as the contract has been breached (At the time of speaking to both we only knew the AST had been breached, not the business side of it)

The agent has been pretty useless, he told me what I wanted to hear and asked what I wanted him to do which was get our money back we have put in and he has since gone quiet after talking to the landlords, and according to them the contract has not been breached as we can still stay til the end of the 6 months lease.

We last had a meeting with the landlord a week ago and they returned our deposit, well part of it! We paid £5000 deposit then a month upfront when we started in January and they for some reason thought we had paid £2500 deposit and 2 months of rent upfront despite it saying in the contract the amount etc, we got them to send the full £5000 and we believe the only reason they have done this is so we can't use the excuse of we don't have the funds to find accommodation elsewhere as if we stay past the eviction day they could get a huge fine and so could we potentially.

The landlord has spoken to me on several occasions and offered us the yard as a separate rental once we move out of the accommodation and even said they were going to give us £2500 back at the end of the rental period as a good will gesture.

Now we know there is no permission for the business to be run from here (despite specifically asking if there was permission and being told yes!) that won't be on offer(or shouldn't be!) and I am desperately looking for somewhere to move myself and my clients to, I have a contract with my clients to say we will give each other a months notice if I am unable to look after their animals anymore, they all know whats going on as wanted to be honest with them but we are struggling to find another yard within the area we need to stay in for them and my boyfriends work as we use his wage as a fall back as the business was just getting off the ground so we rely on his work.

Our rent is due for this month and I'm in two minds whether to pay it or not, we have been told by many not to but don't want to get us in any trouble. We have been told the contract was breached by the landlords but we are worried if we take legal action that us not paying the rent til the end of the contract will put a spanner in the works.

My issues are we are at risk of prosecution through no fault of our own, and I cannot expand my business as it;s only a matter of time until we will be asked to leave by the council.
The landlords are now going around telling people they are selling the whole property which if I don't mention to potential clients will make me look bad and if I do they won't move in, so business cannot move forward and I'm not at full capacity so feel a bit begrudged to pay full whack for somewhere we aren't legally allowed to live or run a business from.

Any information would be appreciated!

Annisele

Debz87 wrote: »

We were on a 6 month lease to then be extended to a 2 year so now the landlord has got out of it all by just saying they are going to end the contract after the 6 months which falls 2/3 weeks before the period we have to be evicted by (end of June).

Obviously we have spent a lot of money and time doing this place up to bring in business and we were happy to extend to the 2 year contract. Now we have put in all the time and effort for nothing as we have just got the business paying for itself and now have to leave, this is going to affect my business in a negative way as well as we have used personal savings to keep the place afloat, if we had known it would only last 6 months we wouldn't have bothered and if we had known there was no permission for the use it was advertised then we wouldn't have touched it with a barge pole.

We have been to CAB and spoken to a solicitor who have advised us to stop paying the rent as the contract has been breached (At the time of speaking to both we only knew the AST had been breached, not the business side of it)

I'm afraid I've no idea of the answer here. I do have some questions, which may or may not be relevant. I'll ask them anyway, and hopefully somebody will be able to make sense of the answers!

What exactly did your contract say about extensions? Was it "6 month lease, which will be extended unless X,Y or Z happens"? Or was it just "6 month lease, and we'll discuss extensions later"? If the latter, I don't think (contractually) the LL has done anything wrong in not renewing. If the former, he might have done - but it depends exactly what the contract says.

Do you have two separate contracts (one for the living accommodation, and one for the rest)? Or just one contract? The reason I ask is that I'm not sure one single contract could possibly be an AST; ASTs aren't generally for commercial use. If it's not an AST, then you don't get the benefit of all the terms that are implied in to AST contracts. (Edit: by "not sure", I mean exactly that - I don't know if it could be an AST or not).

What documentary proof (if any) do you have of your efforts to check whether planning permission for your business was in place? Do you still have the advert for the property? And did it say you'd be able to keep horses (commercially or otherwise)?

Debz87

We have an AST and a separate lease for the yard.

The lease says the contract goes on for 2 years but has a review date where either party can terminate at the 6 month period.

The advert for the property is still being advertised on a website called pelhams equestrian, its the 3rd one down and is advertised as a competition/training yard.

We have access to the info with restrictions on the arena and to show the planning application to change what we live in from an office to a dwelling failed but nothing about the enforcement order which you would think would be publicly available?

We could probably get a copy.

LeoTLion

I think the best advice would be for you to speak to a solicitor.

I suspect that, as carrying on a business at the premises is illegal, then the contract is void. So whatever it states is irrelevant.

Debz87

We have a solicitor helping us and she said not to pay anymore rent, I have now sent it anyway and we will just have to request it all back when we start legal action, we just didn't want things to get awkward whilst we are still all living on the same property :-(

mrginge

I'd love to know what reasoning your solicitor is using that suggests you don't have to pay rent.
Perhaps you could explain what breach has actually occurred?

phill99

I'm sorry to say that alot of this is of your own making. It would appear that you undertook no or very little due diligence when taking on a commercial lease.

You seem to have relied on the Estate Agent. Remember that the EA acts for the Landlord and not you. His agent will only pass on information to you from his client. The agent wont clarify the status of this information. So if the landlord tells the agent a load of baloney. He then in turn will pass it to you. There Is the issue of 'caveat emptor' or 'buyer beware'. That means you have to satisfy yourself that the property has good title, planning permission etc. This is what your solicitor would have unearthed, but something tells me you didn't employ a solicitor when you entered the commercial lease.

It looks like your accommodation doesn't have planning permission to be used as such, nor does your livery yard. You need to seriously start looking for new premises and new housing.

Annie1960

Debz87 wrote: »

We have a solicitor helping us and she said not to pay anymore rent, I have now sent it anyway

Why are you not taking your solicitor's advice? It's pointless to get advice and then not take it.

LeoTLion

mrginge wrote: »

I'd love to know what reasoning your solicitor is using that suggests you don't have to pay rent.
Perhaps you could explain what breach has actually occurred?

It is impossible to be in breach of a contract that is void. How the matter is resolved will depend upon, at what point, the contract became void.

If it is declared illegal at formation, then the law will take the view that the contract never existed.

If the solicitor suspects this to be the case, then the advice not to pay additional rent is correct, given that no contract exists requiring the tenant to pay rent.

Debz87

We didn't use a solicitor when going into this lease no, we have rented other properties before without any issue.

This has only kicked off because the neighbour knew about the previous history and decided to report it, it would appear either the landlords did not know or tried to get away with it.

The enforcement notice is no where to be found yet the council have been given a copy.

The council didn't even know themselves about the enforcement notice and according to the landlords this wasn't flagged up when the property was bought, however they did appear to know about the fact there was no permission for the business uses etc, although I'm not sure how we are supposed to know that and I don't understand why we would be the ones in the wrong as it seems some have implied above?

The property was advertised for business use and our contract states this, the landlord previously ran her own business from here with no issue so how on earth would we have found out there was an issue?

The yard has always been run as a commercial yard doing competitions and liveries since 1970s but the previous owners did lots of things without planning we have since discovered (Landlord told us this recently).

I'm not wanting to pick fights with anyone but I really don't see how any of this is our fault!

The solicitor we have helping us and the CAB have said that the contract has been breached as there is no planning permission to live in the accomodation so the AST means nothing.

We had it put into the contract that the council tax was included in the price which they had no problem doing and even had a form to fill in for council tax at the same time the letter arrived wanting to inspect the property.

Now we have found out about the restrictions on the business side and are waiting to find out what will happen next, we haven't spoken to a solicitor or CAB about this as only found out on Friday once everyone had gone home, hence this post wanting to know whether we should pay our rent or not which we have now done anyway, we are not made of money and feel very cheated by the whole thing, we fought against other people to get this place so it was obviously not common knowledge otherwise other people that were from the area wouldn't have tried to get the property, we moved from outside the area.

LeoTLion

If the 'landlord' is amicable, it may be in your best interests to keep things that way.

My advice would be to get some legal advice, from a solicitor who specialises in contract law, before you decide what to do next.

That way you can go back and discuss the matter with the 'landlord' and perhaps resolve things without the need for legal action, which would be complicated, costly and time consuming.

I would suggest your priorities should be finding a home and some new business premises, as the one thing that is clear at this stage, is that you can't stay where you currently are.

Once your immediate concerns are dealt with, you will be better placed to decide what action you would like to take next.