I’m going to go with the flow and I’m sorry to see Jaime go out. My reasons for that are not women's solidarity. I have lost my job also sometimes ago and I remember all my
feelings.
I don't hope the rest of the staff find new employment quickly. It's our world and unemployment people are not rare things. I will pray and hope all the staff will receive a new job and all the wages are owed.

This has been set up...

[www.change.org]

So jamie does not own the freehold? I am confused. Does seem wrong that a good
Local pub co is being turfed out.

tiddles Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> So jamie does not own the freehold? I am confused.
> Does seem wrong that a good
> Local pub co is being turfed out.


It seems (from what I can see) that he does own the freehold but a 2nd party owns a long term lease and that was sublet to the tenant on a lease (30 years?) that expires this year.

I may be wrong.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit was 2019:02:20:15:17:14 by JohnL.

What I know about property law could fit on the back of half a stamp, but doesn’t a freehold trump everything else?

Or is it that Jaime owns the land that the pub stands on, but somehow the business itself is separate?

I need someone to explain it to me slowly using brightly coloured crayons...

JoeLeg Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> What I know about property law could fit on the
> back of half a stamp, but doesn’t a freehold trump
> everything else?
>
> Or is it that Jaime owns the land that the pub
> stands on, but somehow the business itself is
> separate?
>
> I need someone to explain it to me slowly using
> brightly coloured crayons...


I think I still couldn't understand it even with the brightly coloured crayons ....

Just in case you were in any doubt about Enterprise Inns, this video explains it if you have a few minutes. Shared from a friend who works in the trade.
[www.youtube.com]

Perhaps we should club together and seek it be listed as a Community Asset....

that's a strange video, not least because it appears to have been filmed on his commute.

I think his main issue is that tenants were missold when they entered into the lease. If so then he will need more evidence about the marketing that went on at the time. Otherwise it looks like a landlord exercising their rights at the end of the tenancy; if tenants don't like that (and I can see why they wouldn't) then they shouldn't enter into the 5-year lease.

But now it seems enterprise are not taking it over - and i thought they were
The people turfing them out?

Whoever takes it over - they will have to pay rent to the freeholder.

I think i need crayons and pie charts.....

I think that Jamie owns the freehold but entered into a long lease (lets call this the primary lease) with Enterprise Inns.
EI agreed to grant a sub lease for a term back to Jamie to run the pub. This secondary lease has now expired, but the primary lease is still running and during the time of that primary lease, EI 'control' the pub. The situation is made more complex with beer ties in terms of whether its more economically viable for EI to sub let to a different tenant.

This might not be the whole story, but thought it might help!

There are 3 ways of legally occupying a property - freehold, where you own the property and land outright and can sell or give away those rights, leasehold where you buy access to a property for a given term (normally over 70 years initially for domestic property, although I have known as little as 25 years, and frequently much less for commercial property). You can sell or give away your leasehold to a third party. A leaseholder will normally be required to pay for the upkeep of the property, and it is normal to pay up front for the leasehold (a full negotiated price, as for purchase of a property outright) and additionally pay the freeholder some form of annual rental for that freehold.

Finally there is rental. As a renter you may have a fixed term (common in commercial agreements) or it may be open ended - but you cannot sell on or give away your rights and the rental agreement is with you alone. Rental agreements allow you, or your landlord, to terminate the rental agreement under certain, stipulated, circumstances. You will pay monthly (commercially often quarterly) rental and may additionally (often in commercial rentals) take on some repairing or maintenance liabilities. Commercial leases, (but they are not quite like domestic leasehold as such) may have break points or points where the rentals can be reviewed.

Where the commercial lease has time-terminated the freeholder has no requirement to extend the lease or offer the leaseholder a new lease.

A leaseholder can offer their property to tenants, so you could have a property where the freehold is owned by entity A, a lease by entity B and is being rented by B to entity C.

3 separate entities can thus have an interest in one property, with different obligations and rights. Unless it is covered by a specific agreement in the leasehold, a freeholder cannot interfere in the relationship between a leaseholder and their tenant - even where the freeholder and tenant are the same entity!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit was 2019:02:21:09:33:24 by Penguin68.

Thx goldilocks - that actually makes sense!

Greene King would not buy a sub lease though.

They would buy a freehold pub with no lease at all on it - i.e. no lease to enterprise and no sub-lease to the pub manager.

That seems to be the most likely scenario here. If the lease with Enterprise expires in June and the sub lease also expires the whole operation could be sold as one. I would guess that might be worth about £5m.

If I could cash in for that (after 15 years of hard work!) then personally I would let my lease expire and take no action to 'save' the pub.

mikeb Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> that's a strange video, not least because it
> appears to have been filmed on his commute.
>
> I think his main issue is that tenants were
> missold when they entered into the lease. If so
> then he will need more evidence about the
> marketing that went on at the time. Otherwise it
> looks like a landlord exercising their rights at
> the end of the tenancy; if tenants don't like that
> (and I can see why they wouldn't) then they
> shouldn't enter into the 5-year lease.


There’s a lot of (former) tenants of Emterprise who allege that they were outright lied to, both during the application/negotiations and subsequently. A pub in Balham took them to court claiming that Enterprise had tampered with equipment designed to measure how much beer they were selling. They won.

What I would say is that no one should touch Enterprise with a barge pole.

Abe_froeman Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Greene King would not buy a sub lease though.
>
> They would buy a freehold pub with no lease at all
> on it - i.e. no lease to enterprise and no
> sub-lease to the pub manager.
>
> That seems to be the most likely scenario here. If
> the lease with Enterprise expires in June and the
> sub lease also expires the whole operation could
> be sold as one. I would guess that might be worth
> about £5m.
>
> If I could cash in for that (after 15 years of
> hard work!) then personally I would let my lease
> expire and take no action to 'save' the pub.


That would imply it reverts to the freeholder after June (and I note your last paragraph ).

“If the lease with Enterprise expires in June and the sub lease also expires the whole operation could be sold as one. I would guess that might be worth about £5m.”

As far as I can make out, Jamie’s lease with Enterprise IS the sub-lease which is due to expire in June. I haven’t seen anything about Enterprise’s lease with the freeholder expiring soon though happy to be corrected.

It must be the sub lease as James seems to own the freehold?

Presumably once Enterprise lease expires they will take over again? Could be long time though.

Very odd situation with the recent kitchen refurb etc

Freehold owned by Jamie and Paul Rigby who

Lease to

Enterprise who

Sub-lease to Jamie and this sub-lease is due to expire in June.

There's now a petition you can sign...

[www.change.org]

nxjen Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Freehold owned by Jamie and Paul Rigby who
>
> Lease to
>
> Enterprise who
>
> Sub-lease to Jamie and this sub-lease is due to
> expire in June.



I'm wondering if this originated as a "sale and leaseback" - would only be the case if EI were the Freeholder before Jamie - and dont know how to check this

15 years ago:
EI (tbc) owned pub freehold, but have no tax deductible expense.
EI sell FH to Jamie, on the understanding that he will then offer to lease it back to them on the long lease.
EI get cash from the sale of the freehold
EI's annual lease cost to Jamie is tax deductible - they have therefore created an ongoing tax deductible expense out of an asset they previously owned

EI creates a sub lease to Jamie out of the long lease, perhpas 15 years - all is friendly
EI decides after 15 years not to renew the short lease. As freeholder who has granted a long lease Jamie has no control over this

EI now free to either create a new short sub lease for the remainder of the long lease term to a new venture, or take over the running of the pub themselves under the long lease

If EI feel that they had undercharged for the original 15 year sub lease, and will charge significantly more for the new sub lease they may have offered this renewal to Jamie at a rate that was too expensive for him to continue - or they may have just, as is assumed, not wanted to continue working with him, full stop.

Well put MM
Bob S

Penguin68 says:

"Where the commercial lease has time-terminated the freeholder has no requirement to extend the lease or offer the leaseholder a new lease." That's not right in all circumstances, but not worth a teach-in here...

This all sounds very like what happened to another EI tenant I know. EI are commercially as sharp as razorblades. A petition won't help, unfortunately, because they're solely about getting sufficient cashflow to service their humonguous debt. They won't GAF about the community aspects. Only money talks.

Looks like EI are becoming quite vindictive in all of this row

[www.instagram.com]

Seems they've granted a new lease to a vehicle called "Old Spot Pubs" which is actually just a subsidiary of Enterprise Inns.

Well there are so many other fabulous pubs on lordy lane - after giving the palmerston crew a great send off, boycott
The new pub?

Unless you believe the new tenants were a direct party to the 'doing down' of the Palmerston tenants then you damage an I innocent party by your proposed boycott without impacting the presumed 'guilty'.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit was 2019:05:15:17:08:47 by Penguin68.

yes fair point...

The new tenants are part of the Enterprise Inns corporate group according this: [beta.companieshouse.gov.uk]

Yes it's all here:

[www.eigroupplc.com]

What a strange story this seems to be.

Seems EI have debt mountain which is probably why they're doing it.

[www.standard.co.uk]



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit was 2019:05:16:06:54:09 by mrwb.

Having looked at the other Old Spot pubs mentioned in the press release it seems that the food menu is fashioned according to each location. Unsurprisingly the pub in Farnham Common appears to have a food offering closest to the current Palmerston whereas the Limehouse offering is distinctly pub grub. I guess we have to hope the ED offering will be closer to the Farnham Common end of the spectrum!

[lgn1390837841.site-fusion.co.uk]