Enterprise reduces pub's rent by 38%

Enterprise has agreed to reduce rent by 38% for 12 months at a south Wales pub on advice of a valuer chosen by the pubco.

In a rare move, Enterprise agreed to pay in full for the surveyor to assess rent at the Open Hearth in Sebastopol. The firm said around a dozen cases have been settled through an independent valuer in the past year, "and in the majority of cases the costs were shared 50:50".

However, the lessees questioned why the rent reduction is only temporary. Phil Jones, Open Hearth licensee and son of lessees Don and Angela Jones, has reported Enterprise to the BII for alleged breaches of its lease code of practice.

Enterprise agreed to reduce the rent from £56,455 to £34,750. The figure was proposed by valuer Stephen Parker of Nuttall Parker,

who was paid for by Enterprise. Surveyor David Morgan of Cookseys DMP had said £28,360 would be a suitable rent.

The reduction is backdated to 12 February 2009 and will return to normal on that date next year.

Phil Jones said: "What's the point of putting the rent back up to £56,000 in February? It's going to put us back where we were, and in the middle of winter."

He said he believed it was a code of practice rent review and questioned why it had become a rent concession. He wants a permanent reduction backdated to February 2008, when he claims the first request for a cut was made — this is disputed by Enterprise.

Enterprise's chief operating officer Simon Townsend said: "Any adjustment of the contractual rent outside the rent review cycle is an entirely discretionary concession, and we have chosen to exercise our discretion here."

Townsend said the period of concession "is also at our discretion and depends on the individual circumstances".