Commercial rents judgement

aloyisious

Mt Justice Peter Charleton has ruled against the owners of the Bewleys Cafe premises on Grafton St in the case taken by the Co operating the cafe there, with regard to the upwards-only rent review on the premises.

The ruling may not be applicable to other Co's renting commercial premises in Dublin or elsewhere, but it is definitely a precedent and may be of use to other Co's operating under similar rent agreements.

not yet

aloyisious wrote: »

Mt Justice Peter Charleton has ruled against the owners of the Bewleys Cafe premises on Grafton St in the case taken by the Co operating the cafe there, with regard to the upwards-only rent review on the premises.

The ruling may not be applicable to other Co's renting commercial premises in Dublin or elsewhere, but it is definitely a precedent and may be of use to other Co's operating under similar rent agreements.

Brilliant, I'm over the moon..can't wait till this gets passed on to the consumer, ha ha now that's fcuking funny.

aloyisious

The Indo' report below say's the case was taken to the court by the owners to force a rent increase on the Cafe operators.

BEWLEY’S cafe has secured a landmark victory to stop its landlord hiking the rent again.

The famous Grafton Street restaurant sought to prevent any increase on the €1.5m a year imposed at the peak of the property bubble in January 2007.

Mr Justice Peter Charleton ruled that the rent must be allowed to drop to a level to reflect the state of the market.

It is estimated to be half of what it was set at five years ago.

The Dublin building is owned by Ickendel Limited, a property company controlled by the developer Johnny Ronan.

Bewley's claimed it was losing €700,000 because of grossly excessive rents and that 25 jobs had been lost in the cafe since 2007.

The firm said losses were being covered from other parts of the group with profits down by 68pc to €500,000 in 2011.

No senior management from Bewley's were available for comment on the court victory but it is understood chief executive John Cahill wants time to consider the result.

"Bewley's has welcomed the decision of the High Court and is delighted with this outcome," a spokesman said.

Ronan's Ickendel, which has had its loans transferred to Nama, challenged Bewley's through the High Court to accept a rent increase.

The market rent will now be established by an arbitrator.

Judge Charleton said it was no surprise that Bewley's wanted the rent cut.

"It is not in accordance with business sense that a rent appropriate to five years previously should govern a hospitality market markedly changed for the worse," he said.

Rent on the four-storey building, traditionally known as Bewley's Oriental Cafe, has gone from €213,000 in 1987 when the lease was first signed to €1.46m in 2007.

The case heard that Grafton Street rents are said to be down 52% from the peak if a tenant gives up a lease and a landlord seeks a new occupier.

Seachmall

Why is the landlord trying to hike up the price? Is it simply greed or are there additional fees he needs to pay as a result of owning the premises?

AnonoBoy

About time this sort of thing was stopped.

It's ruining Dublin city centre.

VinLieger

Seachmall wrote: »

Why is the landlord trying to hike up the price? Is it simply greed or are there additional fees he needs to pay as a result of owning the premises?

Greed and Upward Only Rent Reviews are a part of all celtic tiger era rental contracts, statistics show that when someone vacates a property now in the city centre the rent drops by 50% yet greedy landlords are still insisting current renters pay celtic tiger era rents

Dravokivich

Seachmall wrote: »

Why is the landlord trying to hike up the price? Is it simply greed or are there additional fees he needs to pay as a result of owning the premises?

Lower rents apparently means lower property value.

squod

In before The ''what about my pension'' brigade. What about it.

Death and Taxes

Seachmall wrote: »

Why is the landlord trying to hike up the price? Is it simply greed or are there additional fees he needs to pay as a result of owning the premises?

The landlord is Johnny Ronan of Treasury Holdings fame.
Now that NAMA have snapped up a good piece of his portfolio he has to find someone to fund his obscenly lavish lifestyle!

wolfpawnat

A great day for the business's of the city. We won't see much of a difference as consumers, and a lot of companies are foreign so we will not see the overall benefits, but it may be the difference of the dole queue for many!

Robbo

aloyisious wrote: »

The ruling may not be applicable to other Co's renting commercial premises in Dublin or elsewhere, but it is definitely a precedent and may be of use to other Co's operating under similar rent agreements.

Reading the reports on this so far and I will quite likely be confined to the facts of this particular case in that it was the wording of the rent-review clause on which the case turned. However, let's not get to excited either way about precedents until a written judgment is delivered.

Horrible blunt devices as they are, were upward only rent reviews to be fair game, the unintended consequences could be "interesting" to say the least. Pension funds out of pocket and carte blanche to mess with your constitutional property rights could be two of the more alarmist (and therefore most suited to After Hours) scenarios that spring to mind.

awec

Far too many empty shops on Grafton Street for what is supposed to be Dublin's principal shopping street.

Dravokivich

awec wrote: »

Far too many empty shops on Grafton Street for what is supposed to be Dublin's principal shopping street.

There's plenty of Newsagents.