Ungentlemanly and dishonorable bunch to deal with.
In my experience an ungentlemanly and dishonorable bunch to deal with.
My advice is to be extremely careful when negotiation with the Peer Group. They claim to being upfront and honorable in negotiations but the opposite has proven to be the case in my recent experience.
We began negotiations in February this year on a unit on the Mace Industrial Estate in Ashford, Kent. Our offer was accepted on the proviso that we would complete within a month. We instructed our solicitors incurring the costs associated with our end of the legals.
Three months or more passed with very little coming back from the other side causing us to repeatedly query if there was a problem. The answer always coming back as ‘no problem’ and that we were the ‘preferred tenant’.
In late May we finally receive the agreements to sign with a target completion date of 17th June. On the 16th of June after much chasing and a day before the scheduled completion date we receive a one line email simply stating ‘I have to tell you that the landlord has now let these premises elsewhere’.
It turns out that despite denying the same that The Peer Group PLC had been negotiating with Cooper Vision on the same property and ditched us in favor of Cooper Vision one day before we were due to complete.
Throughout negotiations the Peer Group denied that there were other parties involved but it seems were in my opinion simply using us as a lever to get the deal they wanted from Copper Vision who already occupy the majority of the Mace Industrial Estate.
We are a small family run business who incorporated in 2010. Our business is successful but as a small business we can ill afford the waste of management time and legal costs just to be used as a stalking horse in the Peer Groups negotiations with their big client Cooper Vision.
One would hope that in this day and age a large PLC would have ethical guides that stop them from swatting small business for their own ends. No so it seems with The Peer Group PLC.