Commercial premises advice required of poss

Slimbo

Hi All,

I have set up a retail company with 2 other people.
I have put 75% of the money for start up, my other partner put in the other 25% and the last partner has put up the guarantee for the premises of 100k.

Our 1st quarter was yesterday and we hadn't got the rent and won't have it for at least a week.

The 25% partner has told me that the guarantor is looking to not pay the rent(it was up to him to pay), to get the landlord(who he knows very well), to execute the guarantee and give him a percentage for doing it. The money is overseas and he reckons this is a way of bringing it into the country.
The guarantor reckons that he will then have 100% opwnership of the shares and company if this happens.
This will laeve us with nothing.

My questions are:
Can this be true?
Can the landlord kick us out just like that?(we have spent a lot of money on the fitout).
Is it not true that possession is 9/10ths of the law. We have put the actual investment money in and the gaurantor has put in nothing.

Any advice would be appreciated.

nuac

Surely the members of this company entered into a shareholders' agreement before taking the lease?.

Would hardly lose shareholding unless there was some agreement that paying up under a guarantee triggered a transfer of the shares to the paying guarantor(s) from the other shareholders. That would be unusual..

If you did not take legal advice before this start-up you certainly need such advice now.

Good luck.

maxwell smart

Does your agreement state that the guarantor takes posession if the rent is not paid? Did you get legal advise before entering into this agreement?

I've been following your exploits on boards as to how your biz is doing, and will be calling in in two weeks to sample.

Perhaps this foreign investor does not realise that Irish law is different from Argentinian???

Slimbo

Thanks guys,

Just to clarify, this is not the restaurant in town, but another business that I entered with other guys recently.

I have given all the documents to my solicitor and the lease doesn't say that the guarantor gets 100% of the company within the documents if we default on the rent.

However, can the landlord kick us out and activate this 100k gaurantee?

I'm not to familiar with this senario and would just ike some heads up to see if anyone else has come across this type of thing.

Its a horrible situation as it "appears" that one of my partners has been up to no good.

Thanks again

Victor

Slimbo wrote: »

However, can the landlord kick us out and activate this 100k gaurantee?

Presumably, of course, he can only activate the gaurantee for the amount owed.

The guy who is meant to pay the rent can't rely on his own default to change the nature of the relationship. You really do need your solictor to kick butt here and if necessary take legal action.

Do you really want to be freidns with these people if they are going to do this to you?

Slimbo

Thanks guys,

I definitely do not want to be in partnership with people who would even think this type of thing, never mind do it.

I'm just worried that the landlord will attempt to kick us out of the premises just when we are starting to get business going.

I'm sure the landlord would be out of pocket further if he got us out as no premises are easily rented out these days. I hope he would cut a deal to keep us there as we signed a 10 year lease.

If the worse comes to the worse, I know this wolld be messy, but I would be in my rights to leave the premises the way we leased it....a shell. I'm sure he would'nt want that either.

Does anyone know if I have any legal rights to stay, or is it up to the landlords descretion?

Thanks again.