Mandaue City to Big Hotel: Submit lease offer or be evicted
Lawyer Elaine Bathan |Rosalie O. Abatayo
MANDAUE CITY, Cebu—Submit a new offer to lease or be evicted from the property.
These are now the choices left for the management of Big Hotel at the height of the issue on the closure order issued against them by the Mandaue City government last Wednesday, February 27.
Lawyer Elaine Bathan, executive secretary to Mandaue City Mayor Gabriel Luis Quisumbing, said they already sent a communication to Big Hotel asking them to submit a new offer to lease along with a copy of the report of the Commission on Audit (COA) asking the city to act on the alleged defective process in the assignment of lease from the original lessee, Katumanan Hardware Inc. (KHI), to Cenore Corp. which owns the hotel.
“We already informed them of the audit findings, and we asked them to submit by today, Monday, their offer to lease the property so that we will be able to rectify the defective deed of assignment,” Bathan told the members of the media in a press conference on Monday, March 4.
Bathan said they had not received any reply from the Big Hotel management regarding their position.
This despite the earlier announcement of the hotel’s legal counsel to meet with Bathan and the City government to settle the issue.
“I want to put it on record that they have not reached out to this office. Instead, ang siyudad pa gani sa Mandaue ang nipadala nila og letter asking them to submit their offer to lease the property. We sent it Friday afternoon, as of this moment, wala pa tay nadawat nga letter or any communication by phone or text from any of them,” Bathan said.
The closure order against Big Hotel and sister company, Big Hotel Suites, stemmed from an alleged irregularity in the terms of the lease agreement on the 1.4-hectare lot that these establishments occupy along Mantawi Drive in Barangay Tipolo.
Read more: Mandaue City padlocks two hotels built on city-owned lots due to ‘anomalous’ land lease contract
Mandaue City padlocks two hotels built on city-owned lots due to ‘anomalous’ land lease contract
On Monday, Bathan also said that Big Hotel Suites had already been cleared and got the green light from the city to operate after it was able to submit documents proving that the lot it was occupying was not part of the 1.4-hectare lot originally leased to KHI.
Bathan said Big Hotel Suites are only subleasing the lot it occupies from another direct lessee of the city government, Seaboard Realty.
But with the concern on the lease status of Big Hotel remaining in question, Bathan said they might be forced to padlock the hotel if it would continue to defy their recommendations and “disrespect” the communications sent by the city.
“Legally speaking, there is no contract of lease to speak of and if there is no offer and they are not going to take any action, therefore, we will have to make a stand and say nga since wala silay contract of lease, then it is the City of Mandaue that owns the property. And we have the right to this time enforce to the latter the closure order and have them evicted from the property if they will continue to defy the closure order or disrespect the communication that the city has extended to them,” Bathan said.
She, however, did not disclose until when would they wait for the response of the management of Big Hotel.
“It’s still Monday, and we want to give them as much time and courtesy as they deserve considering their continued disrespect and defiance. I will leave it to the city legal to determine [when is the ultimatum],” she added./dbs
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