Candy Box fund for legal fees to fight landlord

Candy Box is Littlehampton's favourite sweets delivery service. Started in 2020 by us, Angela & Adam Philpott, to bring sweets and treats to families in the local area, we quickly became a cornerstone of this wonderful town.

After moving into our first store in March 2021, we quickly discovered some small issues that, when investigated further, led us to find much larger problems with the building. A tree which had been left for nearly two decades had grown through the wall pushing the interior and exterior wall lining, causing the corner of the wall to almost collapse. After contacting the property management agents to report the problem, we were told as it is not a block issue to take it up with our landlord. Our landlord, who is also the owner of the Freehold, failed to reply but had told the property management agency that it was down to us to sort out. We realised that this issue had to be dealt with immediately, so we took the responsible action of finding someone to repair this despite the cost to ourselves.

After speaking with a friend who is a builder and bricklayer by trade, he agreed to undertake the work for us at 'mate's rates'. The wall was in such a state of disrepair that the mortar between the brick was crumbling away, and the gap between the corners was nearly two inches wide. This was rectified with staybars and a chemfix solution and re-bricked. This work cost us £640.41, which the landlord and property management agency have still failed to reimburse us for, although the work was carried out in July 2021.

The other side of the wall, which was adjoining another property and we were not legally allowed to touch, was also in serious state of disrepair which also had a tree growing into it. Our friend informed us that this was not a small job and would cost significant money to repair. This part also had a hole between the brickwork and soffits potentially allowing pests access and ingress of water. We contacted our contracted pest management company to investigate and they stated that it was a likely entry point for pests to access the entire building including the flats above.

We then urgently contacted the property management agency and the landlord and stated that we would enact our break clause unless repairs to the property were carried out immediately.

Our landlord's office told us that immediate work would be carried out, and there was no need to enact our break clause. We chased for reimbursement of the funds we had paid to repair the wall on the other side. We were promised that the landlord's office would inform the property management company to reimburse us, but this never happened.

By the time we initially decided enough was enough, we had sadly already passed our break clause notification date, leaving us trapped with a defective property for the foreseeable future. In the months following, we repeatedly argued with our landlord's office that this needed to be repaired immediately and we were just ignored. This unrepaired situation had led to multiple instances of rainwater shorting out the electrics to the shop, each time losing multiple tubs of expensive Ben & Jerry's ice cream. The first time the electrics were shorted, we had to transfer all of our ice cream and chest freezer to our house just to keep the product frozen.

This situation had already started to impact business operations and our mental health. Throughout 2022, the situation between the landlord and us deteriorated with the failure to reimburse us for the work we had done and no remedial repairs to the remaining hole in the wall. We could not simply leave, as we would be liable for all costs of the lease, and this further impacted our mental health and led to many sleepless nights filled with worry and anxiety.

In October of 2022, after 13 months, we realised that we needed to take legal action but were unsure how to proceed or if the court could end our lease.

In November 2022, after several days of heavy rain, water started to seep into the floor and ceiling of our back room, shorting out the electricity and forcing us to shut our shop until we could dry the area. This situation broke us emotionally, and we wondered how much more we could take. We made the decision to take legal action and we informed our landlord, to which he replied, 'take out the 'without prejudice' and resend the email if you have any merits in your pathetic claim'. We decided we needed to inform our customers what was happening and explain why we had been closing so often or why we had closed early some evenings. No one should have to endure this kind of bullying from their landlord.

After such an outpouring of support from our customers and multiple requests to set up a GoFundMe, we realised that our fantastic customers wanted to help us in our fight against this injustice. As the law currently stands, commercial tenants are only allowed to end their lease by using their break clause or with the agreement of the landlord - neither of these are options for us. Conversely, the landlord can terminate the lease if the tenant fails to pay rent or meet other lease obligations. There is no recourse for the tenant to end the lease if the landlord fails to meet their lease obligations. We cannot be the only tenants in this unjust situation, and we have asked our local MP Nick Gibb to help rectify this and ask fellow Ministers to help change this law.