The operator of the Central Hotel in Singleton has been ordered to pay extensive back-rent after battling the landlord over blocked sewerage pipes flooding the premises.
Valor and Pride (V&P) operate Central (Hotel) Bar and Kitchen in the Hunter Valley.
Recently director Mark Smith had refused to pay full rent, on the basis the landlord, Hamish Ord’s Ord Developments, was responsible for rectifying ongoing problems with the building’s waste system.
In October last year Smith wrote to Ord complaining that both the men’s and women’s toilets were “repeatedly flooding” and raw sewerage was appearing in the parking area, after seeping under an external wall.
Patrons were said to be exposed to issues with the overflow, particularly offensive odours, and it was disrupting the business.
The matter unresolved and eviction threatened, in December V&P pushed proceedings in the NSW Supreme Court, requesting the court order Ord Developments to pay for repairs, stop the lease being terminated and grant a rent abatement of 45 per cent, suggesting the company was entitled to a discount due to the offensive problem.
The letter previously provided to Ord was submitted to the court.
The court commissioned plumbing expert Joel Fullick, who performed a camera inspection and found a substantial accumulation of “a concrete-like substance” that he said was an “extremely large build-up of calcified urine”.
Fullick’s report posed the blockage had “developed over many years” – pre-dating V&P’s tenure.
But the finding did not produce the result the operator had hoped, when in July Justice Ian Harrison ruled the lease was “unambiguous” in it being the operator’s obligation to “keep all waste pipes and drains in the premises free from blockages”.
What’s more, the terms of the lease provided no legitimate basis for abating the rent, even if the cause of the problem began before V&P took over.
Harrison ordered the company to pay almost $128k in outstanding rent by 11 September or face termination of its lease.
V&P were found to also owe money to the ATO, which Harrison noted was a “significant” factor in the ruling.
Last week the court heard the plumbing issues have been fixed but that V&P had not corrected the debt in full. A payment plan for repaying the debt to the landlord was ordered, effectively providing an extension allowing the business to stay, pending compliance.
