this video I want to take a look at some of the implications of the coronavirus
covert 19 situation for small business owners who have leases or licenses and a
number of questions arise I've had a number of queries from small business
owners so I'll just run through some of the queries that I've had and trying to
address as best I can the questions first question is and the most obvious
one is most I keep paying rent bottom line is there's almost certainly no
entitlement in the lease to cease Ingrid in other words when you sign up for the
lease there are various covenants and conditions and it is extremely unlikely
that the coronavirus is going to give you an opportunity or a lawful way to
cease paying rent so it's very very unlikely if you did that the opportunity
is open to the landlord and to take matters further and he could or she
could look at course of action including commencing legal proceedings against you
to recover the rent to recover the lease to get or obtain possession of the
premises and obviously if you pay the rent deposits or rent deposit deed that
would be down the swanee and obviously you may well have a guarantee as well in
respect of the rent or somebody else may have provided a guarantee in relation to
the rent all of those avenues would be open legal lawful courses of action open
to the landlord to pursue the rent so bottom line is when you enlist
you may soldier and therefore when you sign up for a lease you must abide by
the terms and conditions the covenants and conditions can I terminate the lease
or just hand it back no you could only do so with the consent of the landlord
that's assuming of course that there's no break clause option in the least
maybe there is but if there is a break cause option in the lease that obviously
you could only exercise is in accordance with the terminus in the lease and give
the required period but by-and-large he can't just
terminate the lease in hounded back you must unfortunately continue to pay
the rent and comply with the various covenants and conditions for the term of
the lease can you claim off your insurance policy you need to review the
terms and conditions of your insurance policy the C does it cover you in
respect of having to pay rent or on the other losses that might arise from the
coronavirus covin 19 situation but i would caution you you probably know as
well as i do that if you are looking through an insurance policy and you're
looking at the terms and conditions and you're looking to find one in your favor
you are probably on a futile exercise far away by all means review it
carefully and closely traverse it line by line
but the bottom line is you're always in trouble if you're looking for an
insurance policy to give you a digger can the landlord close my premises this
is a tricky one because it will depend where the premises is for example if
you're in a shopping center it's quite possible that the landlord might close
the shopping center in following the advice from public medical expertise and
so on and so forth but by and large it is unlikely that the
landlord can simply close the premises now if the clothes for example if a
landlord close the shop etc obviously you don't have access to your premises
obviously you're not entitled or you're not able to exercise quiet enjoyment of
the premises and that would be a common or condition in your favor in the lease
so you'd have an argument there all right in relation to having access to
your premises and you would have an argument that the landlord has
essentially breached the lease can you suspend payment of rent there
may be provision in the lease for the suspension of rent but it's most likely
to include the type of situation where a building might be struck by a light of
God by lightening or perhaps a motor vehicle crashing into it or
catalyst catastrophe an earthquake for example a volcano lightning a force
majeure act is not sort of an act led to the building being damaged or destroyed
it's possible that there is provision in the lease for suspension of payment of
rent but it would be an exceptional force majeure sort of circumstance in my
view the bottom line is that as I said at the outset when you enlist
give me a soldier if you signed up for a lease unfortunately notwithstanding the
appalling conditions trading conditions at the moment for small business owners
and for entrepreneurs and sole traders and so forth it is unfortunately the
legal position that the landlord is entitled to get paid the rent in
accordance with the lease no that's not to say that the landlord won't be
perfectly reasonable individual and give you a break or give you some sort of a
deal even on a temporary nature but from a legal perspective if it comes to court
or anything of that nature the bottom line is the lease is probably going to
oblige you to continue paying rent regardless of coronavirus implications
or not I hope you find this video useful if you do you might give it the thumbs
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thanks for watching