But she’s arguably part of a largeish wheel. Taylor is a small cog, a franchisee with just one salon which has been open only a year and isn’t yet making money. Just Cuts is a 225-salon franchise operation headquartered in Australia. “If you do not remedy the Default within the time period stated the Landlord shall be entitled to re-enter the premises and cancel the Lease,” Russell McVeagh says. That’s an almost 40 percent penalty, and it needed to be paid at the same time as April’s rent. Oh, and there was a $1725 extra charge to cover the costs of issuing the three-page default notice.
The interest would be charged at 14.5 percent per year (the landlord’s bank’s highest commercial overdraft rate, plus an extra 5 percent). “You are hereby required to remedy the Default by payment of the sum of $4574.28 (including GST) together with the interest accrued by 8 June 2020,” the letter from lawyers Russell McVeagh said. Jo Taylor, whose Just Cuts shop in the Queenstown Central mall has been closed since lockdown began and can’t start up any time soon, hadn’t paid her rent for April, and the landlords wanted their money. On April 22, a letter went out from one of the most expensive law firms in the country to the owner of a Queenstown hairdressing salon. Economic Recovery Empty malls and empty coffersĪs the Government ponders the details of a package to help SME businesses struggling to pay the rent, Newsroom looks at how landlords and tenants being “kind” to each other can have many different interpretations.