OK for Owner to Tell Tenant It Would Change Locks

A lease said that the owner could terminate the lease if the tenant failed to correct a lease violation within 14 days of receiving notice of the violation. The tenant failed to pay its February rent on time. On Feb. 10, the owner sent the tenant a letter saying that the February rent was late and that the owner would be initiating eviction proceedings and changing the locks. On Feb. 18, the tenant and owner met to settle the dispute, to no avail. Meanwhile, the tenant still didn't pay the February rent. So on Feb. 25, the owner changed the locks and sued to evict the tenant. The tenant claimed that it had stopped paying rent because the owner had committed an “anticipatory breach” of the lease (that is, the owner had terminated the lease before it was allowed to) when it said on Feb. 10 that it was going to change the locks to the tenant's space. At that time, the tenant still had time to correct the lease violation.

A North Carolina appeals court ruled that the owner hadn't committed an anticipatory breach of the lease and ordered the tenant to pay the owner $15,000 plus interest. The court said that the tenant's failure to pay the February rent was a lease violation. Although the owner said in the Feb. 10 letter that it was going to change the locks, it didn't actually do so until Feb. 25, after the tenant's deadline to correct the violation had passed, the court said. The lease permitted this act by the owner in the event of a default, the court added [Bystry v. Nemet].