Business premises

[stevo5]

My brother and i have been running our small family business for about 25 years. He now wants to retire, but i am not in the same financial situation as him & need to carry on. for between 3&5 yrs. We own our small w/shop & office premises, he wants to either rent it out completely or charge me rent for it. I need to stay at these premises, my questions are these... should i pay him rent when i own 50% ?...should i say tough i am staying & he will have to rent his half out ? It will be hard enough trying to run the business single handed as it is !.......Any comments would be appreciated..Thanks

[Eve]

Could you afford to buy him out?

Could you raise finance if you needed to eg remortgage the premises if you could keep up the repayments with the business profits rather than paying rent then have the whole value to do with what you want when you want to retire.

Or is he still looking for income from the business to keep hom going in his retirement, hence the rental suggestion?

[stevo5]

Hi & thanks for your reply... He has some other property which he is relying on for an income, he is not having anything from the business itself, but would like to make some money from the property, I don't really want a mortgage/loan at 50, the property was valued at approx 160k. he did consider giving me 80k & then obviously i would pay him rent, but decided to wait until he could purchase a flat for rental, he could get more return for his 80k......he has asked me for �45.00 per week, & i pay for all the other utilities. I feel he has dropped me in c**p & then walk away & expect me to pay him rent ! What could he do if i refused to pay rent &say he will have to rent his half out ! & also refuse to rent out the whole property ? I don't really want to relocate & am not allowed to run a business from home (in the deeds)....i am in a dilemma & need an amicable resolution if there is one. i wonder how i stand legally ? Don't really want to involve solicitors yet !

[Twenty20]

If I understand what youre saying correctly, you both own this premises jointly with no mortgage. I dont understand though why he would be giving you 80k and then you paying that back to him in installments? I would have thought the solution would be for you to buy him out of his share of the property i.e. you would give him maybe 80k and have his name taken off the deeds.

Is this also actually a company, do you both have equal shares in it? Is he walking away from the company completely too or do you need to consider buying him out of that as well?

I can see why he would want his share from the property and company. Personally, i'd first get an accountant or someone to value the actual business.

I dont think you can just say to him that he can rent out his 'half' of the premises. I would guess that you both own the whole thing jointly and not half each with the property split down the middle.

I think you do need legal advice.