To rent or not to rent - help please

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yellow88

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Hi all. I am new to the forum but was hoping you would help me in reaching a life changing decision.

I have the oppertunity to rent a house with wonderful equestrian facilities where we could run a full livery yard from. My only concern is that the lease would only be for 3 to 5 years until the housing market picked up and the house will be sold once the appropriate buyer came along.

Like the owners have said, they cant say exactly how long because it depends on the housing market.

Am I right in walking away just because the lease is only 3 years? My view is that you will have just estabilished a business and then you would have to move on, and theres no guarantee you would find another approriate property to move to.

I am torn, my head is saying walk away but my heart is saying give it a go.

Thoughts please. x
 
Its a difficult one that probably needs to be answered by thinking about your future goals. Are you aiming to do this as a stop gap in your life or is this a career for the rest of your working life? If its the latter then I think walk away as it can take years of hard graft to get a great reputation that can be difficult to take with you if you can't find suitable facilities after the property is sold.

Is there no way you can work something out with the owners with regards to buying it?
 
If you run a business from the property then potentially your lease will fall under the Landlord and Tenant Act 1954, this will give you additional security of tenure. If the landlord wished to terminate the lease then they would only be able to do so under certain grounds, non payment of rent, you didn't carry out your lease obligations, they wanted to occupy it themselves, they wanted to carry out redevelopment of the site. If they terminated because of a ground that was not your fault you would be entitled to compensation.

Could potentially be a difficult situation regarding the residential/business element of the property, but I've dealt with shops with living above and the whole thing has been done on a single business lease. I suppose the argument would be on the fact and degree of the business element of the property. If the landlord sells the property with a business tenant in place, a new owner has to wait a certain amount of time before they can terminate the tenancy on the ground that they wish to occupy the property themselves.

You can sign away this security of tenure on a business lease so, in effect at the end of the term of the lease the landlord can just terminate the lease without having to prove one of the grounds, but this needs to be clearly stated and signed at the start of the tenancy, no notice, the Act applies.

Obviously not knowing the full situation it is hard to say what to do, the advice of a Surveyor or Solicitor could be invaluable and an initial consultation is not likely to be hugely expensive or could even be free.
 
Hi Lisamd and Faithkat, thanks for your replys. There is planning permission for a yard at the moment and it has previously been run as a commercial yard but it stands empty at present. (previous sale fell through)

It would be a permanent change thats why I have the concerns over the short lease, because like you say Lisamd it will take 3 years to build up and then its time to move, with no guarantee of finding suitable premises.

I wish I could come to some arrangement to buy in the future, but the property is way over my budget to buy.
 
Thanks Tillypup. It sounds like a real minefield. I agree if I did decide to pursue it further it would be best to involve the 'professionals' and I cerainly would. But I wouldnt like to enter into a lease thinking that the only way I could stay, when the owners wanted to sell, was to go through a leagal battle in order to get compensation. I think I would rather say no now than live with that thought for 3 to 5 years.
 
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