What Happened: Courts around the country continue to rule against tenants seeking to use the COVID-19 pandemic as an excuse for not paying rent. One of the more creative cases involves a fitness center tenant that had to close from March through September 2020 due to shutdown...
What Happened: A lease required a medical tenant to reimburse the landlord for the costs of improvement made to the space if it terminated early. The tenant did terminate early, and the landlord billed it for $108,000 in improvement costs. The tenant refused to pay, contending...
What Happened: A shopping center lease allowed the tenant to use the premises “solely for a tobacco, cigar, and vape store,” and “for no other purpose unless approved in writing by” the landlord.
What Happened: A convenience store tenant signed a lease requiring it to carry certain insurance at its sole cost and expense during the lease term, including at least $1 million in general liability insurance, worker’s compensation insurance required by law, and plate...
What Happened: After finding it liable for lease violations, a court ordered a restaurant tenant and its guarantors to pay damages to the shopping center landlord. It also held them jointly and severally liable for the nearly $40,000 in attorneys’ fees the landlord...
What Happened: In 2019, a tenant signed a six-and-a-half-year lease on property to be used solely “for the purpose of operating a pet and cat boarding facility” and banning other uses without the landlord’s prior written consent. In operating the business, the...
What Happened: An office tenant didn’t exercise its renewal option on a lease that expired in April 2022. However, the tenant continued to pay, and the landlord continued to accept rent after the expiration date. A few months later, when the tenant ran into problems that...
What Happened: A tenant leased the ground-floor store in a building for use as “a first-class convenience shop doing business as ‘AM PM Market’.” Just over a year into the 10-year lease, the landlord’s property manager discovered that a company...
What Happened: Wracked by COVID-19 financial struggles, a restaurant filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy while continuing to operate its restaurant in Chicago’s prestigious Magnificent Mile District as a debtor-in-possession with hopes of assuming the lease after being...
What Happened: After receiving a notice to file claim from a contractor who didn’t get paid for fire prevention work performed on a Boston Market restaurant, the landlord notified the tenant leasing the property that it was in default of the lease and gave it 30 days to...
What Happened: A shopping center sent an email asking a restaurant tenant to renew its lease at an increased rent. The tenant signed the attached amended lease without reading it. Five years later, it vacated the property and stopped paying rent. The landlord served the tenant...
What Happened: The landlord sued a dry-cleaning tenant for nearly $200,000 in damages, including $46,733 in unpaid rent that accrued up to the time the tenant vacated. It also went after the good guy guarantor that “unconditionally, irrevocably and as a primary obligor...
