Faye Finaro, 40, was looking to lease her first office building for her start-up but one oversight caused her business to go bust as she had to pay £15,000 to her landlord
A businesswoman had to pay £15k to her landlord after misreading the T&C’s in her tenancy agreement, leading her business to go bust. Faye Finaro, 40, was looking to lease her first office building for her start-up recruitment company in 2016 and found a good spot in Mansfield, Nottinghamshire.
When deciding on whether to take the space Faye said she felt “pressured” to sign the 20-page contract and was offered a discount as incentive to sign it there and then. Alongside her then-business partner, Faye signed the tenancy agreement for the commercial premises without reading it in detail and got the keys the same day.
They realised days later that it had no internet, nor could they get access to the server room to have it installed. They were using dongles for their staff, but said it was ‘impossible’ to work without Wi-Fi.
Faye said: “We tried to tell them that we needed to go away and think about it before agreeing. But they started adding extras to help us make a flash decision and, in the end, we signed on the spot.
“The same week we realised there was no internet, or access to the server to install it; that wasn’t mentioned in the agreement – they just omitted it.”
They tried to hand in their notice after four months to move the business elsewhere. That was when they learned they’d unwittingly agreed to an 18-month break clause after not reading the terms and conditions in the tenancy agreement properly.
After moving in in January 2016, they handed in their notice in April and were moved out by July, but started getting letters demanding their unpaid rent. That is when they were told there were 11 months left on their break clause – which amounted to £13,200 – plus £1,800 interest.
When they refused, the landlord took them to small claims court and they lost their case. In January 2017, they were taken to Mansfield Magistrates’ and County Court where they were told they had to pay the money they owed because they signed the contract.
Faye said: “I had to pay £15,000 on an instalment plan as we were personal guarantors on the property. It was a huge setback and impacted how our business started; because of the default on my credit file, it led to the downfall of the business. We couldn’t access funding because the bank lenders saw me as too high risk.”
In 2023, she launched her new business, SOSBeauty, “on a shoestring” – borrowing investments from friends. Now, CEO Faye has teamed up with Adobe to share her story to highlight how their Adobe Acrobat AI Assistant can help make it easier to find the small print in contracts.
She said she’s been able to build a “powerhouse” out of her new business and has since fully restored her high credit rating, but she still looks back on the “horrific” period of her life. Michi Alexander, at Adobe, said: “Faye’s story is more common than you’d think – 65 per cent of business leaders admit to signing contracts they don’t fully grasp.
“We’re using AI to make contracts clearer, easier to compare and understand, with verified answers and built-in data security.”
Faye added: “I’d advise someone else – don’t be scared to ask questions, and to ask for help. Don’t put too much trust in landlords that have their own interests at heart – get other tenants’ opinions too.
She added: “The Adobe software would have been really useful when I was on the spot there. I often check legal things using Chat GPT but you still need to use the right prompts to get the right information, so if you don’t know what to ask, it’s hard.
“If I’d had something like that in which was specifically tailored to contracts, we would have been able to check.”
