Landlord gives Zeald 4 weeks to vacate premises Posted 2011, 15 February We have just added a case study on Zeald’s recent move to new premises to the Parallel Directions website. The purpose of this blog article is to give you more background on the events leading up to the move. You can read the full case study here to find out more about the solution and outcome. Zeald.com, the rapid-growth web design and e-commerce firm, had been happily ensconced in its high-profile building alongside the northern motorway for only two and a half years when disaster struck. Zeald’s landlord owned the building that Zeald leased. The site was a leasehold site, which meant the building owner paid ground rent to the land owner. The building owner ran into financial difficulty and defaulted on the ground rent. The land owner took the building owner to court and had the ground lease cancelled. This left Zeald with a lease from a landlord who had no building! The land owner, who was now also the new building owner, presented Zeald with a new lease with less favourable terms. Zeald was given four weeks to sign the new lease or move out. All this just before Christmas! It looked like a disaster for Zeald. In the words of Zeald’s CEO David Kelly… It was just before Christmas, and we are now a fairly large organisation. It looked like we didn’t have any options. David Kelly and Parallel Directions had worked together in the past on Zeald’s property requirements, so David Kelly phoned me and told me what had happened. To cut a long story short, I reviewed Zeald’s strategy and plans and then recommended calling the new landlord’s bluff and vacating the premises within the four-week deadline. My brave client agreed and that’s how the new landlord came to gain a building and lose a tenant. For details on what happened next and how we not only solved this dilemma but achieved a better outcome for Zeald, read the rest of the case study here: New Deal for Zeald Turns Disaster into Opportunity. .
