Tag: sublease

Commercial Tenant Fails to Give Proper Notice of Intent to Extend Lease – IL Case Note

Although it’s an unpublished opinion, Sher-Jo, Inc. v. Town and Country Center, Inc., 2017 IL App (5th) 160095-U still serves as a cautionary tale for tenants that fail to hew to lease notice requirements.  The tenant plaintiff under the commercial lease was obligated to serve the defendant landlord with written notice by registered mail of the tenant’s exercise of its option to extend the lease for an additional five-year term.

Instead of mailing notice of its plans to extend the lease, the tenant faxed its notice and verbally told the landlord it was exercising its option to extend.  But the faxed notice didn’t specify the tenant was extending the lease.  It just said that the tenant’s sublessee – a restaurant – was going to extend its sublease for another five years.

The landlord rejected tenant’s attempt to renew the lease on the basis that it didn’t comport with the lease notice rules.  It (landlord) then entered into a lease directly with the restaurant subtenant.  The tenant filed suit for specific performance and a declaratory judgment that it properly and timely exercised the lease extension option.  After the trial court found the tenant successfully notified the landlord of its intention to extend the lease, the landlord appealed.

Held: Reversed.  Tenant’s failure to adhere to Lease notice requirement defeats its attempt to renew the lease.

Rules/Reasons:

A commercial lessee who seeks to exercise an option to extend a lease must strictly comply – not “substantially comply” – with the terms of the option.  And even though a failure to follow an option provision to the letter can have draconian results, rigid adherence to option requirements promotes commercial certainty.

Here, the tenant’s faxed notice only mentioned that it wished to extend the sublease with the restaurant.  The notice was silent about extending the master lease.

The Court rejected the tenant’s argument that a lease amendment modified the option notice provision in the main lease.  This was because while the amendment did reference the tenant’s option to extend the lease for an additional five-year term, it left untouched the master lease’s requirement that the tenant notify the landlord by certified mail of its intent to exercise the option.

Afterwords:

1/ In the commercial lease milieu, strict compliance with notice provisions is essential.  Although this case works a harsh result on the tenant/sub-lessor, the Court viewed fostering certainty in business transactions as more important than relieving a tenant who substantially, but not strictly, adhered to a lease notice requirement;

2/ Parties to a commercial lease should take pains to comply with notice provisions of a lease.  Otherwise, they run the risk of a court finding they failed to satisfy a precondition to extending a lease.

Commercial Landlord Not Obligated to Accept Substitute Tenant Where No Sublease Offered – IL 1st Dist.

When a commercial tenant’s business is failing, it’s fairly common for the tenant to tender a sublessee to the landlord as a way to avoid a future damages lawsuit and judgment.

Gladstone Group I v. Hussain, 2016 IL App (1st) 141968-U, examines when a non-breaching landlord must accept a proposed sub- or new tenant from a defaulting lessee and what conduct satisfies the landlord’s duty to mitigate damages.

When the corporate tenant’s barbecue restaurant foundered, the landlord sued the lease guarantors to recover about $60K in unpaid rent.  At trial, the guarantors provided written and oral evidence that it offered three potential subtenants to the landlord – all of whom were refused by the landlord.

The trial court found that the landlord violated the lease provision prohibiting the landlord from unreasonably refusing consent to a sublease offered by the tenant.  Critical to the trial court’s ruling was the fact that the tenant proposed a subtenant who offered to pay $7,500 per month – only about $800 less than the monthly sum paid by the defaulting tenant.

The landlord appealed.  It argued that the lease did not require landlord to accept an offer that wasn’t an actual sublease or to agree to accept less rent than what a breaching tenant owed under a lease.

Held: Reversed

Reasons:

The critical fact was that no prospective tenant contacted by the defendant submitted a sublease to the landlord.  Instead, all that was given were “offers” to lease the premises. There was no evidence that any of the businesses that submitted offers were ready willing and able to step into defendant’s shoes.  While a landlord’s refusal of various subtenant offers is relevant to the landlord’s duty to mitigate, the burden is still on the defaulting tenant to prove that the proposed subtenant is ready willing and able to assume the tenant’s lease duties.

While a landlord’s refusal of various subtenant offers is relevant to the landlord’s duty to mitigate, the burden is still on the defaulting tenant to prove that the proposed subtenant is ready willing and able to assume the tenant’s lease duties.

Since the tenant failed to carry its burden of proving the subtenant’s present ability to take over the lease, the Court found that the landlord was within its rights to refuse the different subtenant’s overtures.  The appeals court remanded the case so the trial court could decide whether the landlord satisfied its duty to mitigate since the evidence was conflicting as to the landlord’s post-abandonment efforts to re-let the premises. (¶¶ 23-25)

The dissenting judge found that the landlord failed to satisfy its duty to mitigate damages.  It noted trial testimony that for several months from the date tenant vacated the property, the landlord did nothing.  It didn’t start showing the property to prospective tenants until several months after the tenant’s abandonment.

The dissent also focused on the landlord’s refusal to meet with or follow-up with the three prospects brought to it by the defaulting tenant.  It cited a slew of Illinois cases spanning nearly five decades that found a non-breaching landlord met its duty to mitigate by actively vetting prospects and trying to sublease the property in question.  Here, the dissent felt that the landlord unreasonably refused to entertain a sublease or new lease with any of the three businesses introduced by the defendant.

Afterwords:

There is a legally significant difference between an offer to sublease and an actual sublease.  A defaulting tenant has the burden of proving that its subtenant is ready, willing and able to assume the tenancy.  If all the tenant brings to a landlord is an offer or a proposal, this won’t trigger the landlord’s obligation not to unreasonably refuse consent to a commercially viable subtenant.

A landlord who fails to promptly try to re-let empty property or who doesn’t take an offered subtenant seriously, risks a finding that it failed to meet its duty to mitigate its damages after a prime tenant defaults.