Notice to Quit Not Required Prior to Eviction Lawsuit

Facts: Under its lease, a tenant was responsible for maintaining the space it rented to operate its restaurant. The tenant was also prohibited from making alterations and improvements without written approval. “Events of default” included nonperformance of these or any lease obligations and nonpayment of rent, following written notice from the owner and an opportunity to “cure”—that is, remedy—the violations.

After an inspection of the restaurant uncovered numerous health code violations, the owner gave the tenant a written list of issues that it needed to address within 10 days. The tenant didn't make the repairs and attempted to deny access to the property to the owner's plumber and electrician so they could reestablish a supply of hot water, which had been affected by the tenant's unauthorized improvements to its space, to the building's residential tenants.

The owner sued the tenant for lease violations including installing a faulty heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) system—which cost the owner $6,800 to fix—without permission, and nonpayment of rent. It later sent a “notice to quit” demanding that the tenant move out. The trial court granted possession of the space to the owner, and the tenant appealed.

Decision: The appeals court upheld the decision in favor of the owner.

Reasoning: The tenant claimed that the trial court should have ruled in its favor, because the owner hadn't served the notice to quit prior to suing it to obtain possession of the space, as required by the lease. But the appeals court stated that New Jersey landlord-tenant laws didn't require a pre-lawsuit notice to quit in commercial real estate cases.

“The statute governing eviction in connection with nonresidential leases does not contain language requiring notice prior to instituting removal proceedings,” said the appeals court. The statute provided that, except for residential tenants, any tenant of any building may be removed by a court after the owner has sent a written notice of the termination to the tenant and a demand that the tenant move out of the space within three days from the service of the notice, which specified the cause of the lease termination. The appeals court found nothing indicating that it should interpret the law to require that notice to quit precede a lawsuit.

The appeals court was also satisfied that the owner had complied with the law's notice provisions. It determined that adequate notice of the owner's claims had been given to the tenant to permit it to prepare its defense, and that pre-lawsuit notice was not required by law.

• 350 Main Street LLC v. Guan Li d/b/a Sun Hing Restaurant, March 2011