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.

Mr Duggan had estimated a proper rent at €25,000 per annum but Judge Deery said the difference, while seemingly small, could over the life of the lease amount to a substantial amount.

He told Conor Feeney, counsel for Superquinn Ltd, he would fix the new rent at €21,000 a year, a saving of €12,400 per annum to Mr McMahon, who lives at Woodfield Estate, Knocklyon, Dublin.

Superquinn Ltd, the owner and main store at the 30-year-old shopping centre, went into receivership last year and is currently owned by Musgrave Ltd.

Barrister John Nolan, counsel for Mr McMahon, told the court the new 20-year lease, dating from November 2010, had already been agreed between the parties with a 10-year break clause.

Mr Nolan said the global banking crisis in late 2008 had created extremely difficult trading conditions and most retailers had seen their turnovers fall dramatically. There had been many business failures.

Ms Fletcher told the court that rents had fallen significantly and currently it was a tenants’ market, with plenty of properties to choose from.