Jan-03: We began leasing a building in Seminole FL, with the premise that a lease would be provided. A verbal agreement was made at that time that a lease payment of $1900.00 would be made monthly. For 6 months, the payment was made on time for the full amount. We communicated with each other the months about various things. Months went by and he never provided a lease.
Feb-03: We informed the landlord that our business required us to store old air conditioning equipment conditioning which is removed from customers house upon replacment. We asked if this would be okay. We also informed him that we have a scrap metal company come each morning at 8:00 am to remove them from the property so the same equipment would not stay behind the fence for more than 24 hours, and the landlord (Jack) agreed, under one condition, that we put up a privacy fence.
In the presence of several employees, he stated it would not be a problem. He agreed at that time that this would be feasible. We then paid to have a privacy fence installed and after months of storing this equipment, we began getting complaints and threating letters from residential neighbors that live behind our building. One threat stated "If your scrap metal guy comes at 5:00 am again, I'm coming to get you". The note has since disappeared; however, we did file a complaint with the sheriffs office who witnessed the threatening note.
March-03: We had a grand opening and a ribbon cutting ceremony to celebrate our new business. We purchased week killer and mulch to make the two building look presentable.
June-03: We received a "THREE DAY NOTICE TO PAY RENT OR DELIVER POSSESSION" letter from Jack stating that we owed him $4258.50 for shortages since Feb-03. He stated our lease payment was actually $1979.50. We questioned why after 6 months is he giving us this letter.
After all the communication and discussions, he never notified us. We had even replaced the air conditioning for his mother and designed a custom web site for his flower shop. He stated "I haven't gotten around to getting you the lease". We felt at that time he just wanted us to move.
Aug-10-03: Upon arriving to our office we found the hinges on the fence we had installed and he agreed to had been removed and the due to that, the fence had fallen and broke. We called over to Jack and asked if he knew anything about it, he stated that 'he' removed the hinges and would give them back to us at a later time. He stated we have not kept the building up and it was always messy. He said he had changed his mind and that we needed to remove the fence.
Aug-11-03: We received another letter stating that effective immediately, no scrap or trash of any kind would be permitted on the property and if the fence (that was approved by him on Jan-03) was not removed by Friday, Aug-15-03, he would remove it for us. Still no lease.
Later that day, Aug-11-03, with no notification to us, a sign was put up in front of our building stating "BLDG FOR LEASE - 545-2500". We anonymously called for details and we were told by Seminole Florist that they were leasing 8615 Seminole Blvd (the building that we occupy). We were not even notified of this, and still have not been.
This leaves us only 2 weeks to relocate to another building, having to pay the costs of moving which is very expensive for a new business, which just paid thousands of dollars to move into this building, letter head, business cards, and other misc. Advertising expenses.
As a tenant, we have been asking for a lease since Jan-03 and are now being kicked out. What rights do we have with out a lease? That is not fair to us and we would really like assistance handling this matter as soon as possible. I would like for him to pay our moving expenses.
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