A formerly-prolific commenter on here, John Corcoran has announced that Korky’s shoe shop on Dublin’s Grafton Street has closed after what appears to be a settlement of a long-running fight with his landlord, Canada Life. The epic battle was over the rent on the 900 sq ft shop at 47, Grafton Street, which has, in recent times, doubled as a giant billboard with the tireless John erecting a series of building-height posters championing the cause for reform to Ireland’s notorious Upward Only Rent Review (UORR) clauses in commercial leases. The clauses in leases created before March 2010, have left many commercial tenants today, paying rents at levels appropriate to the peak of the Irish property boom. Commercial market rents have declined by just over 50% from the peak, the economy has taken a hammering and retail sales have been badly hit and new tenants today enjoy a commercial advantage over tenants handcuffed in pre-March 2010 UORR leases.
John has been locked in a legal fight with Canada Life for a number of years –eight according to the Independent yesterday, but the High Court case is more recent – and although the terms of the settlement haven’t been released, it is understood that Canada Life has agreed to release John from his lease early, though with a payment of compensation.
This evening, the small shop on Grafton Street has metal shutters on the entrance and the windows are plastered with remains of the signs – “20% off all marked prices” and “closing down 8th January” and there are smaller posters saying business continues as normal at the three other Korky’s branches at Dundrum Town Centre, the Ilac Centre and “GPO” which probably refers to the branch on Henry Street.
So what does this mean for the campaign for reform of UORR lease terms, reform which was ditched in December 2011 when justice minister Alan Shatter hid behind finance minister Michael Noonan’s skirts in the Dail, and made what was a shock announcement then of the abandonment of a commitment made by both Coalition parties in the run up to the 2011 General Election.
Of late, John Corcoran’s Irish Commercial Tenants Association has taken to advertising in the centre-fold of the Phoenix magazine and the IrishEconomy.ie website seems to get a regular stream of stock comments lamenting the ballooning of property prices and rents in the 2000s, but with the settlement of the case on Grafton Street, it remains to be seen if the energy for the campaign for UORR reform will be dissipated.
And as it’s the end of an era, I’ll leave you with a record of the posters erected by John over Korky’s in the past three years.
I don’t believe the rents were ever appropriate even at the so called height of the false boom. The high rents are accompanied by commercial rates which are also totally unjust and unsustainable for many businesses. However, if for instance DCC were to cave in to pressure to reduce them how are the salaries that were also bench marked to the boom going to be financed?
The property tax is going to run into major problems and if Revenue get involved in the manner being mooted then I predict it will lead to totally unintended consequences of other taxes being avoided like a plague and the black economy really taking like a rocket. Revenue will become hate figures squandering overnight years of good public relations.
In spite of differences of opinion in relation to the effectiveness of the strategy John was pursuing, I am sorry to see him close. He now needs to re-open in another company (which he should not beneficially own personally) at a lower rental level.
…. and stop giving personal guarantees for the rent. Or if you do, make sure that they are worthless.
“… reform which was ditched in December 2011 when justice minister Alan Shatter hid behind finance minister Michael Noonan’s skirts in the Dail, and made what was a shock announcement then of the abandonment of a commitment made by both Coalition parties in the run up to the 2011 General Election.”
They were idiots to promise what was patently undeliverable legally, however compelling the case have been morally or economically.
John Corcoran’s rent struggle with Canada Life was always destined to end in defeat. He was not only battling a huge multinational corporation but also a wide range of entrenched banking and commercial interests who are intent on continuing as ‘normal ‘ despite the visible failure of of previous policies.A new ‘wet behind the ears ‘ government quickly ditched their promised Rent Reforms hiding behind the old ‘legality’ cliche.Why not test the ‘legality’ of their promised reform in the courts? However this struggle for a just rent for a small shop did highlight important issues and brought to public consciousness some understanding of how we do business in Ireland re rent setting and the type of leases provided here.
“Why not test the ‘legality’ of their promised reform in the courts?”
Why not jump in to a filled bath to see if your clothes get wet?
Because money talks, and very loudly so in the Irish courts.
Corcoran was always wasting his time protesting and making submissions. He should have just closed up shop day one, and so should every other retailer on Grafton Street. The only thing that will put manners on a landlord is a vacant property.
Constitutional protections of property rights (in this instance, a landlord’s right to his entitlements under a lease freely entered into by the tenant) talk very loudly in the Irish courts. You and Mr Corcoran are codding yourselves if you think otherwise. That it makes very little sense for a landlord to insist on his rights in this fashion, and in the face of economic reality, is beside the point.
@ Will. Are you a barrister/solicitor or just a pundit?
Gerard Hogan SC, now a judge of the High Court, drafted an opinion saying the law could be changed. (It’s online: read it.) The Labour Party tried to amend the LCLRA 2009 to prohibit UORRs retrospectively (.. but have now bottled it: see cover of current Phoenix). Contracts contrary to public policy are unenforceable with no compensation payable. (Public policy requirements respond to changed circumstances.) The level of regulatory capture by nervous NAMA/IBRC/AIB types is saddening; employers subordinated to bondholders.
Everyone, not just suppliers, were subordinated to bondholders.
We are governed by schoolteachers. They should have stuck to the “day-job”. They are the pundits – only they are pundits that make promises that they are unable to keep. The promises are based on ignorance of the subject over which they profess knowledge. That ignorance is the reason that we are in the mess we are in.
Country schoolteachers, local politicians, full of ignorance versus the disciples of Bismarck. It’s like Bray United playing Munich.
While I have great respect for Hogan, his position on this issue placed him very much in the minority in the legal professions. The comparisons he draws with other instances of legislative interference with property rights amount to likening apples with oranges. It has been the case since time immemorial that the law is not there to undo bad bargains retroactively. There is no way the Supreme Court as currently constituted would have concurred with Hogan on this one. I’m not sure what your last sentence has to do with the matter at hand.
“Suppliers” should read “employers”. Going to bed before I make too many more mistakes today ;-)
To all Irish commercial tenants who are,massively over-rented,and trapped in legacy UORRs leases, —the work goes on -the cause endures -the hope still lives and the dream of market rents will never die.
John Corcoran
Irish Commercial Tenants Association
Greetings, John. And congratulations on a courageous campaign fought with tenacity. You did change the landscape…. but there will never be true market rents – there will always be escalator clauses of one sort or another written into leases and the strength of those clauses will depend on market forces – back to the law of supply and demand.
To think that you will change the law further with retrospective rent reviews will never happen. It is akin to Don Quixote tilting at windmills. An impotent exercise. There are too many vested interests. In particular the banks would be damaged further and as you know the government has already demonstrated that it and previous governments have preferred the banks’ interests to that of the wider economy.
Having said that, “Well done”. You have cojones!
Many thanks Simon–best wishes to Paddy and all the gang
He’s a size 8 John. I’m a 10. :-)
The only reason this country has this feudal lease law is because the state signed these leases. No other sovereign in the world would sign these ruinous leases.
The greatest bank and property crash in the history of mankind started with one house–Leinster house.
Unfortunately they do in the UK, John. And we follow them – like sheep.
John, didn’t you sign the lease for that premises on Grafton Street? Or are you saying that you were forced to sign it, or codded into it, or something like that?