Rent while off sick

[RedHair]

Hi, appreciate the are lots of posts on here for rent while off sick, my question is slightly different. I'm a self employed rent-a-chair stylist who unfortunately will be unable to work for approximately 8 weeks due to an operation. My rent (as stated on my agreement) includes reception services , use of the salon junior, tea/coffee, towels and product use. Obviously none of these will be used while i'm off, however I appreciate building rent etc will still need to be paid by the owner.

My question is, what are peoples thoughts on a reasonable percentage of rent that should be paid.

Many thanks.

 

[AcidPerm]

Sorry to hear you need an operation and 8 weeks recovery time. I hope it all goes well.

Regarding your chair rent payments. It’s very important that you carefully check the terms of the contract you signed because unless there’s a specific clause that allows you to reduce your rent for whatever reason, you may find that you are still legally liable for 100% of the weekly rent during those 8 weeks. Obviously if your rental agreement was on a percentage split basis, you’d be laughing.

Whilst the rent charged allows the owner to offer you the services of a receptionist, salon junior, laundry, other sundries etc. you can’t unilaterally choose to knock £X off your rent just because you aren’t using those services for 8 weeks.

However, you should definitely talk to the salon owner and see if you can negotiate a reduction in your rent pointing out the potential savings from you not being there, although in the current economic climate, I think your chances of success are slim.

As a self employed person you can nominate another person to work on your behalf so you could ask around and see if anyone might be interested in doing an 8 week trial, but you could be opening a huge can of worms with that if it all went wrong.