Contracts

[MilesPotter]

A contract should be fair to both parties




A few years ago a developer put together a lease, it was my land and he wanted to lease it.




1. When the land was sold we had to take a lower price for it because he had first choice so the land itself was devalued because of the lease, instead of getting £250,000 it was valued at, we were forced to accept £155,000 and this was brought about by the Terms and Conditions of the lease.




2. We were told that we couldn’t stop him from dumping contaminated soils on the land and we ended up with 26,000 tonnes of contaminated silt, it was tested and proven to be toxic but we still had no rights to stop him even though we owned the land.




3. It was clearly in the terms of the rent review that the rent, after 3 years, goes back from commercial @ £550 per acre, to agricultural @ £100 per acre.




Is it possible to sue for an unfair contract.

[atticus]

A few points, Miles:

A lease is not a contract - the unfair contract terms legislation does not apply to leases or other contracts relating to interests in land.

Did you not engage a solicitor to advise you on the lease?

Whether you did or did not engage a solicitor, please tell me that you read the lease before signing it.

Who told you that you could not prevent the dumping of contaminated soil? I doubt that the Environment Agency would have agreed.