Court cuts dry cleaners’ rent bill by €250,000

A dry cleaners, which asked the Circuit Civil Court yesterday to fix a new rent for its store at Superquinn’s Knocklyon Shopping Centre, Dublin, will save almost €250,000 in rental payments over the 20-year term of a new lease.

Circuit Court president Mr Justice Matthew Deery said he had been told by valuers Helen Fletcher of Douglas Newman Good and Dan Duggan of Active Facilities and Property Management Ltd, that commercial rents continued to fall.

Ms Fletcher had told the court she considered €20,000 to be a reasonable annual rent for Paschal McMahon’s dry cleaning store in the Knocklyon Shopping Centre where, until Nov 2010, he had been paying rent of €33,400 a year.