The lease on a café in Deptford High Street is ending, the landlord has mentioned a rent increase and a shorter term, and the owner has no idea whether she has a right to renew. She usually does, under the 1954 Act, unless the lease excluded it, and that single question is often worth more than everything else on her balance sheet. Business law solicitors in Lewisham deal with renewals, rent reviews, break clauses and dilapidations for the independent shops, cafés, bars and studios along Deptford High Street, Brockley Road, Lewisham market and the centre of Catford, and the lease is nearly always the document that matters most.
Lewisham's businesses are small and often creative: design studios and production companies around New Cross and Deptford, breweries and food producers in railway arches, builders and trades serving the borough's endless loft conversions, and the care, cleaning and childcare companies that employ many residents. A local solicitor sets them up as sole traders, partnerships or limited companies, drafts shareholder and partnership agreements before the founders fall out, writes terms of business and contracts with clients and suppliers, and advises on licensing, data protection and the paperwork a first hire requires. Procurement rules come up for firms supplying Lewisham Council or the hospital.
Disputes over unpaid invoices and broken contracts go to the county court, and larger ones to the Business and Property Courts in central London; almost all settle first. Insolvency advice, when a venue or a shop runs out of road, is handled quietly and early by the better firms.
Company formation, lease reviews and standard contracts are typically fixed-fee; negotiations and litigation are charged by the hour.
Business law firms serving Lewisham are listed below, verified first. Read the guides to business law, commercial property law and debt and bankruptcy, see the general business law solicitors page, and go to employment law solicitors in Lewisham for staffing questions.
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