Breaking a lease!!

[phil1147]

I currently have a lease on a unit that was intended on being used for industrial purposes. But i have been using it for retail use. I told the landlord i intended to sell items to the general public from the unit. Now that i have found out that the unit was originally zoned industrial - can i break the lease and find a unit which was zoned for retail use?

 

[mercman]

Have you received notice from your landlord or the Council that you are operating in breach of the planning / zoning of the property, or is it simply that you wish to find another unit elsewhere. However if the landlord was aware of your intentions prior to your signing the lease, the the onus will be up to him to fulfill his obligations to the Council.

 

[Towger]

Not unless their is a break clause in the lease. To be honest the planning permission only matters if someone complains and the council want to inforce it. If you look around you will find many units in estates used for 'other' purposes and in the majority of cases the owner/lease holders are none the wiser that they are breaking planning laws. It may effect your Rates, but the Rates Office and Planning office in many co co's dont seem to talk to each other.
This seems to yet another cause were someone signs a lease without getting a good solicitor to check it.

 

[phil1147]

well from now on we will get a good solicitor to read over everything. so where can i go from here, can i walk away from the lease? i would prefer to find a unit out there that can be used for which it was intended. The landlord did tell me that it would be no problem to retail from the unit. now we know that we should not retail from it, if something was to go wrong in the building there could be implications. I would love some insight into this!!!

 

[yesman]

is there any way to break a contract in a commercial lease?