Greetings everyone.  I am new here and have been reading voraciously for the past couple months as we have been planning for a possible coffee shop.  I have a couple of questions for those of you who may have experience with an asset sale or business purchase where you took over the equipment, and space, but re-branded under your coffee concept. 

We are looking to do an asset sale of all the equipmen and supplies of a little bistro in town and a condition of the sale is favorable lease terms.  W then learned that the Landlord won't release the current tenant from the guaranty even though he'd only had the lease 2 months when we got involved.  We'd also have to guaranty the lease and they appear to want us to accept the lease pretty much as is.  There were some amendments they put in but we wanted more to protect ourselves and make it a bit more fair (current tenant agreed to a horrible lease).  The last response from them was that they don't usually amend lease assignments and that if we wanted to make these kinds of changes we'd need to pay for their attorney to get involved (ummm - us pay for your attorney to represent you????).  They are even throwing it in our face that we don't have experience in this area.

So what experience does anyone have negotiating a sublet where the Landlord doesn't have any real pressing need to lease the space as they have someone on the hook?  We would like this space since space is hard to find; but if need be we can walk away.

There's more details if needed, but I figured I'd start with this.

Thanks so much for any insight.  You all are such a knowledgeable bunch and I just hope to join your ranks in the near future.