Owner Wins, Owner Loses

Tenant Must Pay Holdover Rent Rate in 'Clear and Unambiguous' Lease

July 14, 2015    

Facts: A law firm leased an entire floor in a commercial condominium building. The lease required the tenant to continuously maintain a letter of credit, and to replace that letter of credit if it was no longer valid at any point. A failure to do this would be a lease default....

Settlement Terms Didn't Supersede Lease Requirements

June 19, 2015    

Facts: A car wash tenant signed a lease with a renewal option every five years. The tenant exercised its renewal option twice. During the second renewal period, a dispute between the tenant and owner was settled by a court. The settlement stated that the tenant could operate...

Misused Name in Guaranty Didn't Relieve Guarantors' Responsibility

June 19, 2015    

Facts: A shopping center owner signed a lease guaranteed by the tenant’s business partners. The tenant stopped paying rent. The guarantors refused to pay. They argued that because the “landlord” was listed as a different business entity in the lease than in the...

'Res Judicata' Precluded Tenant's Claim to Continue Operating

June 19, 2015    

Facts: The owner of retail space sent a notice informing its tenant that it was in breach of the lease because it hadn’t installed a fire alarm system. The tenant refused to install a system, and the owner was fined by the city. The owner filed a petition with a court to...

Tenant's Yellowstone Injunction Denied

June 19, 2015    

Facts: A retail tenant was required by its lease to get the owner’s consent for all assignments and subleases. The tenant defaulted on its lease by, among other violations, assigning without permission the lease to its separate corporate entity, which later subleased the...

Tenant Required to Pay for Parking Spaces on 'Must-Take' Basis

May 27, 2015    

Facts: A retail tenant’s lease provided that a certain number of parking spaces would be available outside the space it rented. The lease provisions specified that the tenant would let the owner know at the beginning of each month how many parking spots it would need. The...

Tenant's Conversation with Employee Didn't Orally Modify Lease

May 27, 2015    

Facts: An office building owner rented space to a media company. The tenant was permitted to vacate the space early, in the third year of the lease, provided that it gave 90 days’ written notice, returned the keys to the owner, and paid any outstanding rent and other...

Rent Obligation 'Survived' Owner's Reentry

May 27, 2015    

Facts: The owner of space leased by a kitchen and bath product retailer locked the tenant out of its space after it paid partial rent for several months and then stopped paying rent altogether. The tenant claimed that it was relieved of the obligation to pay rent after the owner...

Guaranty Not Rendered Unenforceable by Non-delivery

April 13, 2015    

Facts: A clothing store tenant signed a modification and extension agreement to extend its five-year lease. There had been no guarantor for the original lease, but the owner required the tenant’s principal to guaranty the lease in order to extend it. The modification and...

'Course of Conduct' Used to Clarify Ambiguous Lease

April 13, 2015    

Facts: Since the start of its lease with a tenant, a building owner paid for electricity for the tenant’s space and charged the tenant 50 percent of the cost as part of the additional rent due. The lease didn’t require the owner to provide electricity, it just...

Owner's Termination Right Wasn't 'Ongoing'

April 13, 2015    

Facts: When an anchor tenant closed its store at a shopping center, the cotenancy clause in a lease between an arts-and-crafts supply retailer and the center’s owner was triggered. When the owner had failed to obtain another anchor tenant after six months, the tenant...

Tenant Can't Claim Constructive Eviction While Occupying Space

March 12, 2015    

Facts: A video rental store tenant stopped paying rent after the shopping center’s owner hung “Retail Space for Lease” signs in the windows and invited real estate brokers and potential lessees to tour the space. The tenant claimed that the owner’s...