in 2016, I found a commercial property that I wished to lease. This was my first time leasing a commercial property. I signed an OFFER and AGREEMENT TO LEASE provided by the Managing Agent. It included rent, outgoings (responsible for all), maintenance, Lease documentation, deposit, bond, special conditions. I never received a copy with the Lessor signature on it.
After requesting a lease to be produced for us to review on a number of occasions, we received a draft nine months later. After adding some personal details of the partners of the business, we returned the draft to the Managing Agent. We then had to request again a number of times a copy of a lease to sign, we never got one to sign.
We never received a disclosure either. We continued to pay rent and outgoings for three years until it was time for a rent review. When we signalled that we would be interested in renewing the lease but needed to know what the rent would be before we could sign. This was about a month before the end of the lease. The managing agent then told us that we would have to investigate what rent was being paid on similar properties in the nearby area. We spend a couple of weeks collecting the information required and presented to the Managing Agent which didn't even acknowledge it. He then offered a 15% rent decrease if we would sign for another two years. We had already some months before informed the managing Agent that we were in financial hardship and would appreciate any assistance he may be able to give. He did not acknowledge this information and then turned around later and said we should have told him. This all took time and we continued to pay rent even after the lease had finished. He did not respond to the notice for a couple of weeks and then said that we needed to make it the end of the month, which meant another month of rent.
We finally left the property in April 2019 and still have not received any of our $15k bond back even after many requests.
What should we do? Where do we stand legally? no Lease, no disclosure?
After requesting a lease to be produced for us to review on a number of occasions, we received a draft nine months later. After adding some personal details of the partners of the business, we returned the draft to the Managing Agent. We then had to request again a number of times a copy of a lease to sign, we never got one to sign.
We never received a disclosure either. We continued to pay rent and outgoings for three years until it was time for a rent review. When we signalled that we would be interested in renewing the lease but needed to know what the rent would be before we could sign. This was about a month before the end of the lease. The managing agent then told us that we would have to investigate what rent was being paid on similar properties in the nearby area. We spend a couple of weeks collecting the information required and presented to the Managing Agent which didn't even acknowledge it. He then offered a 15% rent decrease if we would sign for another two years. We had already some months before informed the managing Agent that we were in financial hardship and would appreciate any assistance he may be able to give. He did not acknowledge this information and then turned around later and said we should have told him. This all took time and we continued to pay rent even after the lease had finished. He did not respond to the notice for a couple of weeks and then said that we needed to make it the end of the month, which meant another month of rent.
We finally left the property in April 2019 and still have not received any of our $15k bond back even after many requests.
What should we do? Where do we stand legally? no Lease, no disclosure?
