Commercial/Residential letting

briantwin

Hi all,

So a weird situation. We have been renting an apartment for use as an office. When we moved in it was made clear that this was it's purpose.

We received a phone call last week saying that due to us using a residential property for an office we now had 30 days to vacate. I was just wondering where we stand. We have been here for over 2 years and have never had any issues. Nothing in our lease mentions 30 days or anything like it.

Anyone know who would be the best person to discuss this with. We feel we are being treated unfairly as this has come completely out of left field. The rental of the property was based on us using it as an office, this now seems to be the reason they will give is very little time to get everything in order and move out.

Thanks for any advice or insight anyone can provide.

Brian

Meathlass

Surely your lease mentions that it would be for commercial use? Does the area have permission to be used in this way. Sounds like someone complained and now they're trying to get rid of you

briantwin

Well it says on the lease it is a private house/apartment. However when this tenancy agreement was signed all parties were very well aware that this was for use as an office. We moved from one of their small office units to this place.

I cannot fathom what sort of complaints could have been leveled against us, no one is here before 8am or after 7pm. We work as an IT company and as such. Only 5/6 people ever enter the premises. So it's not like we're running a hair dressers up here with tons of foot traffic.

Meathlass

Maybe they can now get more rent from residential rather than commercial letting. I'm not sure what leverage you have. You've clearly broken the terms of the lease. They can say they knew nothing about your office set up and you only have a verbal agreement.

briantwin

If the person who signed the tenancy agreement from the management agency has purchased IT equipment/services from our company that would be a tacit acknowledgment of our usage of the unit would it not. It would be impossible for them to deny knowledge of the units purpose as they have been in the office on many many occasions.

Meathlass

Presumably though these apartments can only be rented out for accommodation purposes? In that case it's really just semantics whether you can prove he knew or not. He's probably breaking the conditions of the management agency by renting commercially. Is this a normal apartment with furniture/kitchen/bedrooms etc?

hfallada

Have you had a rent increase in the last 2 years? Maybe the owner is just getting rid of you to up the rent. You can prove they brought services. But I doubt you have many rights if you rented a residential property as a commercial tenant. I imagine you can get an office suite cheap enough as they are always to let since the recession

briantwin

Well it was completely empty unit. No furniture or anything like that.

murphym7

briantwin wrote: »

Well it says on the lease it is a private house/apartment. However when this tenancy agreement was signed all parties were very well aware that this was for use as an office. We moved from one of their small office units to this place.

I cannot fathom what sort of complaints could have been leveled against us, no one is here before 8am or after 7pm. We work as an IT company and as such. Only 5/6 people ever enter the premises. So it's not like we're running a hair dressers up here with tons of foot traffic.

I think you answered your own question here, lease says domestic use, you are using it commercially. It doesn’t matter what was verbally agreed at the time of signing the lease, officially you have broken the agreement, the written one, which is the only one that matters. I think you are goosed. I can speculate on why they are pulling this one now, maybe due to potential rental income they could get from someone else or they might simply have been caught out with the fact that you are there as a commercial entity and are covering their arses through pleading ignorance (pretty likely).

briantwin

So just for the sake of debate. If i was self employed as a day trader and used my home office for work, would i still be in the same situation?

murphym7

briantwin wrote: »

So just for the sake of debate. If i was self employed as a day trader and used my home office for work, would i still be in the same situation?

I wouldn’t have thought so, primary use of the property in this example is residential. You are eating, sleeping, spending leisure time there etc….. Plus you do work in the home office, but primary use is residential. I would imagine there are plenty of people who work at home in a rental property. Where this example would not work however, is if you had customers or clients calling to the property.

Working in a home office alone would not be an issue.