Looking to do a SAR on major Pub owning company

[Buncrana]

Hi folks,

 

I'm not sure if this is the correct place to post this.

 

If it isn't can it be moved to where it should be

 

We are currently in the process of handing the pub we have rented from a major, national pubco for the past few years, back to them.

 

We are going through the process of Dilapidations, which is where they tell us what repairs are needed and, if we don't carry them out, how much it will cost us for them to (allegedly) put right. I should say that we have spent around £100k on these premises. Far more than the Pubco have.

 

Now Pub's are notorious for charging tenants extortionate amounts of money on leaving their tenancy but rarely carry out the work that they charge the tenants for.

 

Quite often the next tenant, unbeknown to them, will pick up the bill for the previous tenants dilapidations as they have no way, due to Data Protection, what the previous tenant was charged for.

 

I repeatedly asked for a Schedule of Conditions of the premises only to be told there wasn't one available.

 

I managed to get a hold of one, not surreptitiously I should add, and lo and behold there are a lot of things (probably around £10k of works) mentioned our our Dilaps report that are also showing on the Schedule of conditions from just a few weeks before we took over, meaning that they were aware of these faults but are charging us for them. The suspicion is that previous tenants were billed but no work was carried out by the Pubco.

 

We are also on a ''Put and Keep''contract which means that we have to put right any work/faults that need to be carried out.

 

My argument is that if they knew of these works, and that they charged the previous tenant for them, then that would be fraud on their part.

 

Do you think a SAR would help in these circumstances?

 

You should be aware that the major Pub's whole business model is to bleed tenants dry when they are leaving.

 

Here's hoping,

 

Buncrana.

[BankFodder]

An SAR is unlikely to help because it concerns personal data. Not business data so if there was anything held about you personally then they would be obliged to disclose that you but in terms of you as a business, it might be a basis not disclosing.

In any event, I would imagine that a schedule of dilapidations is not personal data and so they would be unlikely to be obliged to disclose that in any event.

Are you not able to discuss something with the previous tenant? And also with the incoming tenant? How many previous tenants are you able to locate?

I'm very surprised that they say that a schedule of the condition of the premises is not available. If you ended up in litigation with them then they would be obliged to disclose it or at least confirmed to a judge an under statement of truth that they did not have this information.

[Buncrana]

Hi BF,

 

I've been texting a previous tenant but he doesn't have his dilapidations report any more. He is the only tenant I've been able to get in touch with.

 

I was also very surprised. You'd have thought that something that important would be kept on file, but they are adamant that they don't have one.

 

We have a meeting with them next week. I think I'll wait to see what they say re our dilaps and if it's not pleasant, hit them with what I've found