City traders to ask courts to cut rents

SEVERAL Dublin city centre traders are planning to ask the courts to reduce their rents following a precedent set by two Grafton Street businesses in having their rents cut by more than 50 per cent. RC McCormack’s Celtic Jewellers at the top of Grafton Street and the Burger King fast food outlet have both had their rents reduced in the Dublin Circuit Court.

The jewellers had been paying €150,000 a year for number 51, one of the smallest shops on the street with a retail area of only 19.5sq m (210sq ft) and storage of 6.5 per sq m (70sq ft).

The court set the new rent at €70,000 a year, backdated to April, 2010. Last month, the court reduced the rent on the Burger King store opposite AIB, cutting it by from €436,750 to €205,250.

The Celtic Jewellers building is owned by investor Michael Enoch while Burger King is one of a string of investments on the street held by the Aviva fund. A retail agent specialising in rent reviews says that traders with leases would be going to court unless landlords “become more realistic about what is happening in the real world”. Another city centre leaseholder is to seek court intervention on its rent in the coming week.

Most leases provide for upwards only rent reviews – a system that has now been outlawed – but some are entitled to have their rents set by the courts.