There are over 40 leaseholders at our Aerodrome and over the last decade the local Council has made divide and conquer an art-form, along with charging over the top market rentals for aviation property. Is this happening at your aerodrome?

In  our case, Council began contacting leaseholders stating your lease is expiring in a few weeks.  Are you prepared to sign a new lease at an increased dollar amount?  Or can we expect you will pull your hangar down in the next few weeks?  You employ fourteen staff and all your life-time plans are centred around your business, what do you do?  Most people grasping for a lifeline to keep their business and employees in a job sign up.  After a decade of this intimidatory behaviour what is left is some businesses with short time leases, others with longer and all at different dollar values.  It’s a schmooze with no equity.  What do you do?

Print up a notice for all leaseholders on the aerodrome put those notices under every hangar door and ask them to attend a meeting scheduled in several weeks’ time.  The purpose of that meeting is to establish an Aerodrome Chamber of Commerce, where everyone can join a united group to address the Council’s predatory behaviour.

That’s what the leaseholders at my aerodrome did a number of years ago.  The chamber of Commerce was then registered as an Associated Incorporation within the state’s legislation.  That offers members protection from being sued for their personal assets.

The Chamber of Commerce then invites the local politicians (Local Government, State and Federal) to a meeting to discuss the inappropriate market rent and conditions.  Political lobbying is the only way that you will sway the anonymous public servants out of their comfort zones.

Having made an impression with the politicians using the “Pub Test” it’s now time to prove your assertions.  Contact AOPA Australia and they will readily help you with data and examples of similar cases.

All the leaseholders then contributed a couple of hundreds of dollars each and engaged the professional services of one of Australia’s largest Valuation firms.  It is very important that you engage valuers that have expert experience in valuing aerodromes.  We soon discovered there were very few valuers to be found with this expert experience.  Unlike Council that engaged the services of a sole operator and provided a valuation that ultimately had over 170 issues that had to be amended/deleted after the Council’s valuer discovered that the leaseholders had the professional services of a reputed and professional firm of valuers.  Council ultimately rejected their own valuation after it was challenged.

Right to Information/Freedom of Information.  The leaseholders requested all documentation relevant to the Council’s valuation and decision-making process.  Initially Council refused and cited multiple pages of legal precedent backing up their refusal.  Our legal team simply cited one case law decision and access was granted.  That’s how we identified the 170 plus changes being made from the original valuation to the amended final valuation.  Council had nowhere to move but to reject their flawed valuation.

Next came the proposed lease.  This again had to be tested and examined by a professional law firm who specialize in property leases.  Another few hundred of dollars or so later from each and every leaseholder produced a briefing that exposed the Council’s proposed lease as being a terrible document that invoked breaches of the Property Act and some improvised explosive clauses that would have everyone signing up to it in severe jeopardy.

Next step is an application to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) for an approval to undertake collective bargaining.  The ACCC identified the benefits to all parties to conduct collective bargaining and issued the Chamber of Commerce an approval for ten years to enter into collective bargaining on behalf of our leasehold members.

Our leaseholders have contributed just under $2,000 as their share to the professional costs.  The professional costs were in excess of $70,000.  Individually not many people could afford to pay $70k for advice, collectively everyone could easily afford a small contribution to achieve the very best professional advice.

The Chamber of Commerce negotiated a ground lease at less than fifty percent what they were currently paying and over sixty percent lower than what the Council had initially proposed.  The period of lease was negotiated from thirteen years as offered out to twenty-three years.  A good and a fair result all round.

What happens next time Council brings on a market rental review?  You join with all your neighbouring leaseholders and make a small monetary contribution to pay for an expert valuation.  If that valuation reveals the landlord is trying to seek over the top market rental increases, then in most lease documents you will find a clause that states that should you disagree with the proposed market rental review outcome, that you may object and that the Law Society will appoint an independent expert arbitrator to determine the correct market rental.  Of the several cases similar to this all-aerodrome leaseholder have been successful in curtailing avarice greed.  If you join with all your neighbouring leaseholders and make a small monetary contribution to pay for an expert valuation you will establish a precedent and next market rental review will probably be handled substantially differently by the Council as they remember the arbitrated lease before yours.

You must gather up all the neighbouring leaseholders and form a Chamber of Commerce to look after the interests of all leaseholders.  A united stand against inappropriate demands by Council will prevail on all occasions.

If in doubt contact AOPA Australia who’s expert advice and support during our campaign for justice will reap dividends for all aerodrome leaseholders.

Don’t let the Council’s pick you off one at a time, stand united for justice in Aviation.