 |
| This is Malcolm John Smith. He might look like a man, but he is somewhat less than that. |
You
will never guess what’s happened. It’s
all bad.
With less than a week to go
until the handover of the shop, Malcolm Smith has reneged on his agreement,
betrayed his word and the sale is off.
What a dishonourable toad!
We had a signed contract,
it was totally proceeding. However, it
was contingent on a lease being signed and acceptable. And Anton the Landlord, who is a real estate agent, apparently doesn’t
know how to enter into legally binding leases.
So he neglected to include a Disclosure Statement in the
documentation. All the information in
the Disclosure Statement had already been provided to Malcolm by me and Doug
some months ago, and it was provided again in the lease. But because it wasn’t provided by Anton the Landlord
on the appropriate form, the lease was able to be voided on a technicality. We knew nothing of what was going on with the lease between Malcolm and Anton, because it was between them and we had no right to know what their business agreement was. So this all came as somewhat of a surprise. Good one, Anton the Landlord.
But this wasn’t about
Malcolm not getting information about the rates and body corporate expenses,
etc. He came to see me just before we
closed on Friday afternoon. He said he
was feeling fearful about taking over the business, and people he knows in
Sydney had told him how brave he was, but he was able to read between the lines
and know they were actually telling him that he shouldn’t go ahead with the
purchase. Like a good gel, I resisted
my immediate urge to grasp him around the neck and give him a good shaking, and
instead I was nice to him. How I regret
that now.
So I reassured him that
running the shop is one of the cushiest jobs you could find – it’s certainly
the easiest job I’ve ever had, the business is a nice little earner (as his
accountant had already assured him) and you couldn’t step into a much easier
small business. Doug then arrived at the
shop, and was equally encouraging and supportive. And by the end of our conversation Malcolm
said we were quite right, it was all good and that he knew he was being
irrational. He said he would come by the
shop on Monday to look at the carpet that we were having cleaned especially for
his takeover. He was lying through his teeth, of course.
 |
| For some light relief, here is Caleb playing with some big old French cast iron weights. They were going to be cleaned up and come into the shop, but will now be sold at an antiques fair. |
Even though the
conversation apparently ended on a positive note, it was alarming that he told us that he
had been sacked from every job he had ever held, dumped from every relationship
he had ever been in, that his family in Sydney wants nothing to do with him,
and that until taking on this business his greatest achievement in life had
been to paint his house, so as the time approached for him to step into the
role of business owner he was feeling overwhelmed and unable to cope. Thanks for waiting until the last minute to
tell us all this, Malcolm!
Mind you, it is a well-known
fact that being an antiques dealer is fraught with intense danger, with high levels
of stress, nonstop peril and menace lurking at every turn. It’s a wonder that we make it through the
day, dealing with the amount of extreme jeopardy we face.
Or was that another
life? That’s right, being an antiques
dealer in a successful small business is actually a pretty cruisey existence,
where you get to buy and sell lovely items, meet nice people who appreciate
what you’re offering (and the occasional nutter, it must be said), if you want you can skip
off to Europe to shop and play, and the hardest decision on most
days is what to have for lunch. So you
can see why Malcolm felt so daunted.
Everyone who had met
Malcolm, which was many of our regular customers, had mentioned in sometimes
polite terms and sometimes considerably less than polite terms that there
seemed to be something odd about him and that he came across as very
strange. And yes, we all thought
that. But I was not going to tell
someone they couldn’t buy my business on the basis of being too strange. Being strange doesn’t stop me doing business
with you – just ask many of our regular customers. Yes, just joking, regular customers! You’re all lovely, well-adjusted people. But apart from his generalized strangeness, the true extent of Malcolm's spinelessness and inability to keep his word became apparent with only days to go before the handover.
 |
| Mischka comes to join in, but Caleb is intent on keeping his new toys to himself. |
But there’s no point
telling someone to man up when they have no concept of what it is to be a
man. Even if you enjoy wallowing in your
own inadequacies, even if you have done nothing in your life, achieved nothing,
have nothing of worth or meaning, you can at least have your personal
honour. Even if you are unable to do much
beyond blither about your own shortcomings and how meagre your life is, you can
at least decide how you will treat the people around you. You can have some dignity in how you approach
life, however fearful you are on the inside.
At least, that’s what I thought.
How wrong I was.
So what do we do now? Anton the Landlord immediately offered us
another lease, but hey Anton you just cost us the sale of the business, so we
are not inclined to take up that offer. He
wants us to act as if nothing has happened, that his incompetence and laziness
hasn’t resulted in the loss of the sale, and that for him it should be business
as usual with us as his reliable tenants.
In fact, when he came and showed us the email from Malcolm’s solicitor
and said that now he wouldn’t have a tenant from next Monday, I said that this appeared to indicate that the sale of our business also wasn’t proceeding, and he said What about me? Thanks for the sympathy! His actions had just cost us the sale of the business,
and that’s all he had to say – What about
me?
 |
| After bracing himself Caleb gave an all-mighty pull on this weight and moved it. It's a 5kg weight, so that's some impressive jaw power. |
We saw Anton again today and he
again pressed us for an answer on whether we’ll renew our lease on the shop. We told him that we weren’t happy with him
over his negligence with the lease, and he scoffed and said surely we couldn’t
be serious that it had anything to do with him.
Yep, that’s what we’re dealing with – lying and dishonourable behaviour
to the left of us, laziness and utter incompetence to the right of us. The Retail Shop Leases Act has existed since
1994, and landlords of retail premises must enter into retail leases in accordance with the Act. So do you think by 2013 Anton might have read it, seeing how it pertains to his own
property that he is leasing? Too many
big words, apparently.
So well, what about Anton? He doesn’t have us as tenants any more,
that’s what. The rent for our shop is
higher than any other in the complex, the body corporate fees just rose 60% in
the last period with no explanation, and the water bill for us is the same as
the cafes in the same complex because of the shared water meter. We'd have to drink Olympian amounts of tea and
coffee to equal the water usage of the neighbouring cafes, but we still have to pay the same. And for that we get an incompetent landlord
who can’t take care of his own interests, let alone anyone else’s.
 |
| In keeping with the spotted cat pictures in this blog: a French goldtone & black enamel climbing leopard brooch, 8cm long, c1960. It will be on the website soon, and is $42. |
So it’s over to Plan
B. In Plan B we still own all the stock
and shop fittings that Malcolm was supposed to buy, so we can still sell the
stock and use the shelving to present it at antiques fairs. We shall still undertake buying
trips each year, because we’ll still need stock to sell at Fairs and elsewhere,
and it’s always good to have things that other dealers don’t have.
So that’s the latest
news. It’s disappointing and we’re angry
at both Malcolm who behaved in such a spineless, dishonorable manner, and Anton the lazy and
incompetent landlord who allowed it to happen. Plan B will work
for us, but it’s a real pity that the shop will be closing after all our
work to build it up. But we’ll
still be going on antiques buying trips, selling the goodies at antiques fairs,
building the house, and having circles run around us by a herd of wild
moggies. So I’ll still be blogging, just
about Plan B. Plan B starts on Monday, with breakfast at a nice café we know overlooking the Noosa River, followed by the movies. I've wanted to see the new Star Trek movies for weeks, and now we'll have the time.
If you're able to visit the shop before we close for the last time on Saturday, to offer sympathy and cake, you will be welcome. Otherwise, emails or comments on the Blog to keep in touch would be great.
No comments:
Post a Comment