Owner Wins

Payment & Acceptance of Holdover Rent ≠ Lease Renewal

March 29, 2024    

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...

Allowing Illegal Cannabis Sales in Space Is Grounds to Evict Convenience Store Tenant

March 29, 2024    

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...

Tenant in Chapter 11 Can't Assume Lease that Expired Before Bankruptcy Filing

February 27, 2024    

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...

Failure to Satisfy Contractor’s Lien Costs Franchise Tenant Nearly $1 Million

February 27, 2024    

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...

Not Negotiating Renewal Rent Increase Doesn’t Make Landlord Guilty of “Unclean Hands”

January 30, 2024    

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...

Oral Lease Modification Doesn’t Get Good Guy Guarantor Off the Hook

January 30, 2024    

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...

Physically Absent Tenant Can Still Hold Over After Lease Expires

December 27, 2023    

What Happened: At first it looked as though the tenant had found a buyer for his dental practice to whom it would assign the lease just as it was expiring on Dec. 31, 2019. But the deal fell through, and the tenant sent the landlord an email in February notifying it of his...

Liquidated Damages Clause Is an Unenforceable Penalty

December 27, 2023    

What Happened: The COVID-19 pandemic forced the owner of an iconic cinema in Minneapolis to shut down and default on its lease with six years left in the term. The landlord sued for liquidated damages of $1.8 million, including $364,212 in unpaid rent and $1,444,258 representing...

Not Unconscionable to Make Defaulting Tenant Pay Costs of Remodeling Premises

November 28, 2023    

What Happened: Eighteen months after signing a five-year lease, a rug store went into liquidation, stopped paying rent, and abandoned the premises. The landlord then divided the space into two separate units, leasing one to another rug store and the other to a bath floor décor...

Blaming Business Losses on Landlord’s Failure to Plow Snow Is ‘Mere Speculation’

November 28, 2023    

What Happened: A tenant leased property on a pair of shopping center outlots to operate restaurants. The ground lease required the tenant to pay a pro-rata share of the CAM costs the landlord incurred to keep the common areas in good repair. The landlord sold the property to a...

Commercial Landlord Can Go to Court to Challenge COVID-19 Eviction Moratorium

October 24, 2023    

What Happened: Early in the COVID-19 pandemic, Los Angeles County imposed a temporary moratorium on residential and commercial evictions. A commercial landlord that had leased property to an auto repair tenant that was no longer paying rent due to COVID sued the county, claiming...

Lease Clause Waiver of Jury Trial Rights Is Enforceable

October 24, 2023    

What Happened: A restaurant tenant sold its business to another operator and her brother, the Marcials, who signed a 10-year lease with the landlord to continue operating the restaurant and bar from its current location at the mall. Problems with the transaction arose, and the...