A family business has been forced to move location after 18 years in business, having been served notice by its landlord to leave by the end of January.

Ace Installers, which is run by business partners James Paynter and Milton Jones and their sons, will have to relocate from its current premises in Paget Plaza on January 31 after being told to vacate by Gibbons Management Services Ltd.

Mr. Paynter said he already had to make one member of his staff redundant with the company selling off its carpets and flooring as it winds down that side of the operation - a core part of the business - due to having to scale back as a result of the move.

"Right now what it is looking like is we will have to downsize considerably and basically we won't be in the business of storing carpets any longer," he said. "We will now have to focus on just doing installations, measures, repairs and special orders."

He said the firm was ideally based in a central location, but he had not been able to find a suitable premises to relocate to at a reasonable rent.

"For our business this was a perfect location and we just haven't been able to find anything suitable as far as warehouse and office space location," he said.

"We were not prepared to go to Well Bottom in Southampton or South Side in St. David's because a lot of our business comes from all over the Island so being central and not having to worry about parking was critical to us."

The company was served notice on October 1, originally to vacate the building by December 31, but that deadline now has been extended by one month, and Mr. Paynter said the only option left is to run the business from his own home and the company has been holding a sale to reduce its inventory.

"For our type of business, you can't just say you are going to move anywhere and we don't want to move into the same area as our competitors," he said.

"We have built up the business and our sons have joined the company and been given the necessary training on courses overseas, but now we are facing a situation where our location is being taken from us and it really caught us off our guard."

Gibbons Management Services did not return calls to its office by press time.