The boilerplate “excess rent” or “rent differential” clause appears in many commercial leases. Usually buried in a voluminous lease, no one pays much attention to it until the tenant vacates and the landlord sues for damages. All of a sudden, the excess rent clause assumes critical importance as the landlord tries to prove up its damages. The rent differential/excess …
Category Archives: Real estate litigation
The Landlord’s Duty to Mitigate Damages
When a commercial tenant defaults under a multi-year lease, say by abandoning the premises with several years left on the lease, the law requires the landlord to mitigate its damages. So, if retail tenant skips out on a 10-year lease after year 2, the landlord cannot sit idly by for 8 years and then recover 8 …
An Illinois Landlord’s Commercial Lease Damages
In a typical commercial lease lawsuit, the tenant is long gone and possession is not in issue. Usually, it’s a retail tenant whose business is suffering and who can’t pay the required rent. Because of this, getting a possession order is often an afterthought as the landlord’s main focus is trying to recover damages from …
Continue reading “An Illinois Landlord’s Commercial Lease Damages”