FINE DRINKING EXPERIENCE
WARNING
Only the
Best Bar
In Town
This is a warning to everyone including future business owners planning to lease this premises.
We have been battling the landlord in court for the last 5 months and have lost. We have essentially been evicted from the premises and have packed all of our things and left.
This all started due to the landlord refusing to offer rent relief during the covid lockdowns so as a result, we took them to VCAT.
The landlord and 4 sons have a law firm so we were essentially taking on a team of lawyers to fight for our rights to rent relief and to keep the dream business we saved 8 years to purchase.
To cut a long story short, the landlord effectively sent us a default notice for a few small overheads (water rates, business corp fees, etc) we overlooked. A simple case of forgetfulness made by any human. considering we were paying around $200k in rent a year, these overheads were extremely as small as a few bills. They used this as an excuse to start an eviction process but we both know, they were pissed off about the rent relief application and our persistence to get what we were entitled to set out by the Government.
They sent a section s.146 notice to our old accountant knowing full well we would not receive the notice. Essentially Section S.146 means there are some monies outstanding (the bills) and you have 2 weeks to fix it. Pretty standard stuff, however, after the notice was sent, the landlord called the old accountant to see what was going on and the accountant told the landlord that he no longer works for us and they he will not be passing the notice onto us. The old accountant even went on record in court as a witness to confirm exactly that. With this information, instead of calling us directly to get this sorted, the landlord lock us out anyway. This happened in December, right in the peak of our trade. So many private parties and booking were cancelled including our NYE party which damaged us severely and we have never been able to recover since. It was planned out well to have the most maximum damage to us because the notice was mailed out on 15th of November, then 2 weeks later right at the start of December, we were locked out. So think about that for a moment..
Since then, we had more and more VCAT hearings which means lawyers attending which means more costs, and they came at us with all sorts of convoluted shit in VCAT to evict us which means we would essentially lose the hundreds of thousands of dollars spent to buy the actual business. Which means we would not have a business to sell to get out of there. So that money would be lost due to the relentlessness of these landlords. One of the bullshit terms in the lease states that any and all alterations made in the venue be it cosmetic or not, needs to be approved by the landlord which literally means if we change a light bulb, we need approval. And we did change light bulbs. So that effectively means apparently, we have been breaching this lease right from the start.. So once they learned we upgraded things in the venue like light bulbs, adding strip lighting in the bar, moving a speaker (which we own by the way) from the ground level to the basement, they dragged all of that shit into court in their attempts to find more and more reasons to validate their eviction and make us lose our business and walk away with no money and jobless.
There was not a day where the landlords sent lengthy emails to our lawyers which means they had to read, discuss and respond which means our costs got higher and higher which bled our funds dry and it worked. We were bled dry.
The landlord handled this case is such a vexatious manner that it bled our company and personal funds dry which we were using to try and save our business so that we had a business to sell it and get out of there once this was all over. All to wear out our funds to the point where we could not afford lawyers anymore and had to represent ourselves at the final hearing.
We are now broke and have no job. Had the landlord contacted us directly, this matter would have been resolved months ago but they chose to be dirty and destroy us all because they were pissed off about our rent relief application back in 2021. They have won. We have lost. We now have nothing and they have a grin on their faces.
For all we know, the landlord is now planning to run the business themselves and WE WARN EVERYONE to think twice about running a business at this premises or even supporting any business held at this premises.
Spread the word. Warn others. Tell everyone this story.
WARNING
THE FINE DRINKING EXPERIENCE
Only the Best
Bar In Town
This is a warning to everyone including future business owners planning to lease this premises.
We have been battling the landlord in court for the last 5 months and have lost. We have essentially been evicted from the premises and have packed all of our things and left.
This all started due to the landlord refusing to offer rent relief during the covid lockdowns so as a result, we took them to VCAT.
The landlord and 4 sons have a law firm so we were essentially taking on a team of lawyers to fight for our rights to apply for rent relief and to keep the dream business we saved 8 years to purchase.
To cut a long story short, the landlord effectively sent us a default notice for a few small overheads (water rates, business corp fees, etc) we overlooked. A simple case of forgetfulness made by any human. considering we were paying around $200k in rent a year, these overheads were extremely as small as a few bills. They used this as an excuse to start an eviction process but we both know, they were pissed off about the rent relief application and our persistence to get what we were entitled to set out by the Government.
They sent a section s.146 notice to our old accountant knowing full well we would not receive the notice. Essentially Section S.146 means there are some monies outstanding (the bills) and you have 2 weeks to fix it. Pretty standard stuff, however, after the notice was sent, the landlord called the old accountant to see what was going on and the accountant told the landlord that he no longer works for us and they he will not be passing the notice onto us. The old accountant even went on record in court as a witness to confirm exactly that. With this information, instead of calling us directly to get this sorted, the landlord lock us out anyway. This happened in December, right in the peak of our trade. So many private parties and booking were cancelled including our NYE party which damaged us severely and we have never been able to recover since. It was planned out well to have the most maximum damage to us because the notice was mailed out on 15th of November, then 2 weeks later right at the start of December, we were locked out. So think about that for a moment..
Since then, we had more and more VCAT hearings which means lawyers attending which means more costs, and they came at us with all sorts of convoluted shit in VCAT to evict us which means we would essentially lose the hundreds of thousands of dollars spent to buy the actual business. Which means we would not have a business to sell to get out of there. So that money would be lost due to the relentlessness of these landlords. One of the bullshit terms in the lease states that any and all alterations made in the venue be it cosmetic or not, needs to be approved by the landlord which literally means if we change a light bulb, we need approval. And we did change light bulbs. So that effectively means apparently, we have been breaching this lease right from the start.. So once they learned we upgraded things in the venue like light bulbs, adding strip lighting in the bar, moving a speaker (which own by the way) from the ground level to the basement, etc, they dragged all of that shit into court in their attempts to find more and more reasons to validate their eviction and make us lose our dream business and walk away with no money and jobless.
There was not a day where the landlords sent lengthy emails to our lawyers which means they had to read, discuss and respond which means our costs got higher and higher which bled our funds dry and it worked. We were bled dry.
The landlord handled this case is such a vexatious manner that it bled our company and personal funds dry which we were using to try and save our business so that we had a business to sell it and get out of there once this was all over. All to wear out our funds to the point where we could not afford lawyers anymore and had to represent ourselves at the final hearing.
We are now broke and have no job. Had the landlord contacted us directly, this matter would have been resolved months ago but they chose to be dirty and destroy us all because they were pissed off about our rent relief application back in 2021. They have won. We have lost. We now have nothing and they have a grin on their faces.
For all we know, the landlord is now planning to run the business themselves and WE WARN EVERYONE to think twice about running a business at this premises or even supporting any business held at this premises.
Spread the word. Warn others. Tell everyone this story.
THE FINE DRINKING EXPERIENCE
Only the Best
Bar In Town
This is a warning to everyone including future business owners planning to lease this premises.
We have been battling the landlord in court for the last 5 months and have lost. We have essentially been evicted from the premises and have packed all of our things and left.
This all started due to the landlord refusing to offer rent relief during the covid lockdowns so as a result, we took them to VCAT.
The landlord and 4 sons have a law firm so we were essentially taking on a team of lawyers to fight for our rights to apply for rent relief and to keep the dream business we saved 8 years to purchase.
To cut a long story short, the landlord effectively sent us a default notice for a few small overheads (water rates, business corp fees, etc) we overlooked. A simple case of forgetfulness made by any human. considering we were paying around $200k in rent a year, these overheads were extremely as small as a few bills. They used this as an excuse to start an eviction process but we both know, they were pissed off about the rent relief application and our persistence to get what we were entitled to set out by the Government.
They sent a section s.146 notice to our old accountant knowing full well we would not receive the notice. Essentially Section S.146 means there are some monies outstanding (the bills) and you have 2 weeks to fix it. Pretty standard stuff, however, after the notice was sent, the landlord called the old accountant to see what was going on and the accountant told the landlord that he no longer works for us and they he will not be passing the notice onto us. The old accountant even went on record in court as a witness to confirm exactly that. With this information, instead of calling us directly to get this sorted, the landlord lock us out anyway. This happened in December, right in the peak of our trade. So many private parties and booking were cancelled including our NYE party which damaged us severely and we have never been able to recover since. It was planned out well to have the most maximum damage to us because the notice was mailed out on 15th of November, then 2 weeks later right at the start of December, we were locked out. So think about that for a moment..
Since then, we had more and more VCAT hearings which means lawyers attending which means more costs, and they came at us with all sorts of convoluted shit in VCAT to evict us which means we would essentially lose the hundreds of thousands of dollars spent to buy the actual business. Which means we would not have a business to sell to get out of there. So that money would be lost due to the relentlessness of these landlords. One of the bullshit terms in the lease states that any and all alterations made in the venue be it cosmetic or not, needs to be approved by the landlord which literally means if we change a light bulb, we need approval. And we did change light bulbs. So that effectively means apparently, we have been breaching this lease right from the start.. So once they learned we upgraded things in the venue like light bulbs, adding strip lighting in the bar, moving a speaker (which own by the way) from the ground level to the basement, etc, they dragged all of that shit into court in their attempts to find more and more reasons to validate their eviction and make us lose our dream business and walk away with no money and jobless.
There was not a day where the landlords sent lengthy emails to our lawyers which means they had to read, discuss and respond which means our costs got higher and higher which bled our funds dry and it worked. We were bled dry.
The landlord handled this case is such a vexatious manner that it bled our company and personal funds dry which we were using to try and save our business so that we had a business to sell it and get out of there once this was all over. All to wear out our funds to the point where we could not afford lawyers anymore and had to represent ourselves at the final hearing.
We are now broke and have no job. Had the landlord contacted us directly, this matter would have been resolved months ago but they chose to be dirty and destroy us all because they were pissed off about our rent relief application back in 2021. They have won. We have lost. We now have nothing and they have a grin on their faces.
For all we know, the landlord is now planning to run the business themselves and WE WARN EVERYONE to think twice about running a business at this premises or even supporting any business held at this premises.
Spread the word. Warn others. Tell everyone this story.
