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The link you provide is a solicitor offering genuine mitigation strategies, not a service to evade commercial rates. They repeatedly stress that the circumstances should be genuine (i.e. not manufactured to avoid). They also warn about illegal services: "Beware of scam tenancies offered on the web..". But you are entirely missing the point here, because as fourgee says you are looking at things one-sidedly. And, I most certainly don't think you, or indeed anyone else, is stupid! I do however think that you are misrepresenting the reality. Other people reading this may take away a slanted view of landlords, and just why properties are standing empty. There are plenty of people who will buy into such myths, because it suits their agenda, and deflects the blame from their own anti-business mindset. I don't think that this is what you intend, and I don't think you yourself are in any way anti-business. I get to see things from both sides, and, together with a lifetimes experience in retailing, often get provided with a peek into the commercial market in the North East from more than one of the well known names. Believe me the situation is little to do with greedy and stupid landlords asking unrealistic rents, and a lot more to do with a general lack of enterprise. There are failures on both sides; failures in local government; failures in national policy; and a lamentably low level of small enterprise, brought about by a century of carefully taught state dependency. It's not that there aren't just as many enterprising people here as elsewhere in the UK, it's just that the vast majority of them have - very understandably - given up on the North East. Just when there are a few glimmers of redemption (not the least from the Labour Party, the very architects of state dependency) there's a grave danger that we'll talk ourself back into our hole! That's why I'm challenging your view of unreasonable landlords. Back on subject I'd say that business rates are just a small part of running a business, and even the rents are (or should be) dwarfed by employment costs. Did your associate produce a fully-worked business plan? If so (s)he'd have benefited by providing a copy to the prospective landlord(s). If nothing else (s)he might have got some useful feedback. Of course such a plan would have had to factor in the proprietors income expectations too. In real-world situations businesses never go to plan, but that doesn't mean that plans are a waste of time or unnecessary. They provide a much-needed benchmark. Some landlords - approached with the right mindset - can see, or be made to see, themselves as partners in the business, as they are effectively providing a very necessary part of the capital. They have an interest in the success of the business, and in bad times can often make necessary concessions if kept in-the-loop. What I detect here are hard-nosed take-it-or-leave-it attitudes, and I believe that one such response invites another. There's never finality in business, and being snubbed (or believing you've been) is no reason not to try again and again at later dates with modified propositions. And, it's often better to ask what the other parties aims and expectations are than ask the price. Going into a negotiation with a target price in mind is pointless unless you know exactly what you are going to receive for the money.

There is a para in Annex 2 of the document posted, Posted 16 April 2014 - 10:18 PM, : -· 59c0d895-2a5e-45c6-bcaa-1ffa92d886a7.pdf 167.19KB by Fourgee that states:- ANNEX 2 Conditions attached to the grant of planning permission for 19 residential flats with onsite parking at Bedlington Old School, Front Street West, Bedlington, Northumberland NE22 5EL; 5) Notwithstanding the details submitted with the planning application, no development shall commence (or at a time as otherwise agreed with the Local Planning Authority) until detailed designs for; a) Vehicular and pedestrian access point(s) to the application site, Car parking areas, c) Vehicular turning spaces, have been submitted to and approved in writing by the Local Planning Authority. The works as approved shall be completed prior to the occupation of any of the dwellings hereby permitted (or at a time as otherwise agreed with the Local Planning Authority) and shall be thereafter retained. I would assume this to be true, but no doubt someone with more experience ( I have none) in these areas will correct me. PS. that's not me adding in the grinning emoticon it must be that 'b + close brackets' is the code for