Anytime Fitness franchisee’s property dispute sees exercisers ordered out of gym by security guards

A dispute between the owner of an Anytime Fitness gym in Kalgoorlie and the landlord/owner of the premises has this week seen members who were using the facility ordered out of the building by security guards as the landlord moved to repossess the building.

The widely reported incident, which happened at 5am on Tuesday, saw locks changed, and a notice was posted on the door saying Unit 2, 141 Boulder Road, Kalgoorlie had been “repossessed by the landlord, due to continuing defaults by the tenant under its lease”.

As reported by the Kalgoorlie Miner, the notice bore the insignia of Vend Property, while the landlord was listed on a separate notice as Clay Enterprises.

Soon after the gym, which has operated in the city for eight years, advised on Facebook “Please know we are doing everything we can to work through this. Please bear with us while we work to resolve this.”

Anytime Fitness franchisee and lessee of the unit Chris Bennett told the Kalgoorlie Miner he arrived at the premises about 6.30am to find the locks had been changed and a Notice of Default, Termination of Lease, Repossession of Premises and Dealing with Goods affixed to the main entrance.

Bennett told the Kalgoorlie Miner that he received an email at 4.59pm on Monday stating words to the effect that, come the following morning, the unit would be repossessed because of ongoing rental payment defaults.

Bennett advised “we’ve had a tough time over COVID. And, you know, we are a few weeks behind with the rent (but) out of the blue we got an email last night at one minute to five telling us, and of course, the office was closed by then, so the first we knew about it was this morning.”

Bennett informed he had 24 hours to contest the termination of his lease, and so was actively working with the property manager on Tuesday to negotiate with the building owner.

As of Thursday morning, the gym had reopened its doors with Bennett advising that negotiations were ongoing between himself and the building owner to agree on new lease terms.

He also advised that access to the building was restored on Wednesday afternoon.

Bennett said he was confident from the beginning the matter would be “resolved quickly with the least amount of disruption to our members’ daily workout schedules”.

Pacific MMA, who sublet a portion of the unit, said they were actively seeking alternate arrangements for their classes while the situation was being worked out.

Image: Anytime Fitness Kalgoorlie.