Coordinate All Lease Notice Agreements

Make sure that all notice requirements in your lease sync up with each other. When notice rules of one provision conflict with those of another, you run the risk of running afoul of notice requirements even if the notice you actually provide satisfies all requirements of the particular clause to which the notice pertains.

A New York landlord learned this lesson the hard way. A clause in the lease setting out general rules for providing notice stated that any notice “shall be deemed given if sent by registered or certified mail.” But the lease clause dealing with tenant defaults said that the landlord had to send the tenant a default notice for nonpayments and that after receiving the default notice, the tenant had 10 days to cure the nonpayment before the landlord could terminate the lease.

The landlord sent a default notice to a tenant by certified mail on Dec. 20 advising that it had to correct the default by Dec. 31, or the lease would terminate. The tenant claimed the notice was invalid because it didn’t provide the required 10-day cure period. The landlord argued that the notice was valid because it was sent by certified mail.

The court agreed with the tenant. Even though the notice met the lease’s general requirements for giving notice, it didn’t meet the specific requirements in the tenant default clause. Specifically, the notice sent on Dec. 20 didn’t reach the tenant by Dec. 21—the date necessary to provide the tenant 10 days to cure as required by the default clause [Pathmark Stores, Inc. v. GMB City Market, Inc., Civil Ct. Housing Pt. 18, May 11, 1984].