An Enterprise Inns pub is to feature on ITV's Tonight show, entitled How to Blow Your Redundancy Money, this evening.
The show focuses on Don and Angela Jones and their son Phil, who invested their redundancy money in buying the Open Hearth pub in Sebastapol, Pontypool for £83,000 on assignment with a rent of £46,000 in July 2006.
The couple stand to lose around £110,000 if the pub fails plus their house after borrowing some money against it. They dispute the current rent of around £56,500 — they agreed a £52,000 RPI-linked rent in November 2006 — is too high to sustain at the pub. However, the couple failed to take independent legal advice before signing the lease and at the time of the rent review.
Chartered surveyor David Morgan also appears on the show and advises the rent should be £28,360. Enterprise has offered to drop the rent to £42,000. The Jones claim their annual take last year was £295,000.
"I know we were naive when we took over as we didn't seek proper accounts or advice — we went on trust as to what the pub could earn," said Phil Jones, a former deputy manager at a Laurel pub.
"We can not give up. My parents would lose everything, including their home."
Enterprise granted a three-month rent concession from September to December 2008 and has also offered to pay for an independent valuation.
"It is a cautionary tale," said producer Alex Hill. "With a lot of people being made redundant and perhaps looking to buy a pub, this is a warning to take the proper advice first."
The show also looks at those who invested redundancy money in driving schools and betting franchises.
The show will air tonight at 8pm.