Renting from insolvency practitioner (co. in administration)
Discussion
Firstly, I hope I've put this in the right part of the forum. The situation is that I'm trying to rent a warehouse where the owner of the building is in administration (they have around £15m of property and this is a small part of their portfolio). The property has been vacant for a number of years and needs some structural work which has been agreed to and likewise I have agreed to a number of conditions including the price of the rent, the amount of deposit and the length of the lease.
The process is taking an incredibly long time and the landlord's solicitors have still to even be instructed as to how the lease is to be written despite heads of terms being agreed through their property agent at least 2 months ago. I suspect that there is a possibility that the insolvency practitioner is not particularly interested in renting the property due to the cost of works required (I don't understand the insolvency business well enough to speculate but I'd guess it's money they might have to put in) and I am determined to get in there by the end of the year as I have a lot of stock in storage containers that I can't catalogue and sell until we have a bigger space. It was looking hopeful that their solicitor would be given instruction and everything would be signed last week but this has been a damp squib.
I understand that you need a licence to be an insolvency practitioner and there are a number of rules as set out in various pieces of legislation such as the Insolvency Act of 1986. In a strictly legal sense, can any recourse be taken against the parties involved if they deliberately and unreasonably slow the process to prevent the company's assets from being bought/rented?
I understand that proving this is a completely different thing, that the fault may not be directly with the IP and it's not even a battle I want to get involved in, I just want some clarity on the issue.
I should also point out that the insolvency practitioner has sub contracted a company to act as landlord (company name is X Y asset management to give you an idea of the type of company it is), the asset management company have then also appointed a lettings agent (a fairly large one who deal with a great deal of commercial property- they've been great to deal with and I believe they've received the same lack of impetus that the landlord has shown to us)
As above, I'm not looking to make threats to any of the companies involved, I just want to understand the situation a bit better.
The process is taking an incredibly long time and the landlord's solicitors have still to even be instructed as to how the lease is to be written despite heads of terms being agreed through their property agent at least 2 months ago. I suspect that there is a possibility that the insolvency practitioner is not particularly interested in renting the property due to the cost of works required (I don't understand the insolvency business well enough to speculate but I'd guess it's money they might have to put in) and I am determined to get in there by the end of the year as I have a lot of stock in storage containers that I can't catalogue and sell until we have a bigger space. It was looking hopeful that their solicitor would be given instruction and everything would be signed last week but this has been a damp squib.
I understand that you need a licence to be an insolvency practitioner and there are a number of rules as set out in various pieces of legislation such as the Insolvency Act of 1986. In a strictly legal sense, can any recourse be taken against the parties involved if they deliberately and unreasonably slow the process to prevent the company's assets from being bought/rented?
I understand that proving this is a completely different thing, that the fault may not be directly with the IP and it's not even a battle I want to get involved in, I just want some clarity on the issue.
I should also point out that the insolvency practitioner has sub contracted a company to act as landlord (company name is X Y asset management to give you an idea of the type of company it is), the asset management company have then also appointed a lettings agent (a fairly large one who deal with a great deal of commercial property- they've been great to deal with and I believe they've received the same lack of impetus that the landlord has shown to us)
As above, I'm not looking to make threats to any of the companies involved, I just want to understand the situation a bit better.
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