Articles Posted in Commercial Leasing

Commercial leases in New York are not immune to the effects of COVID.  Enforced shutdowns of “non-essential” businesses by governmental authority has led to mass closure of many retail stores and restaurants and record-high unemployment rates.  Even restaurants limited to the restriction of takeout and delivery service are suffering severely reduced revenue.  The current business climate has inherently altered the lease obligations that a tenant can maintain.  This post will address how the parties to a lease should be addressing the changes to New York’s commercial lease landscape.

It is not unusual for commercial leases to contain a requirement by the tenant to maintain business interruption insurance.  Tenants with such coverage should file a claim with their insurer.  Many insurers may initially deny the claim on the basis that pandemics are not included in their coverage.  This tactic is likely to be subject to future litigation.  Ultimately, the insurers may be required to cover such losses.

A tenant should have an experienced attorney review the particular lease that has been signed to determine whether a force majeure clause may excuse the tenant from its rent obligations.  This clause excuses a tenant from obligations for circumstances beyond its control such as terrorist attack, war, famine, strikes, catastrophic weather conditions and acts of God.  A particular lease needs to be evaluated to determine whether a pandemic is considered to be a force majeure.  Force majeure may also provide the tenant with a defense if conditions prevented it from obtaining a building permit, completing a build-out according to an established schedule, opening for business by a particular date and the like.

News outlets have recently reported that Lady Gaga’s father is refusing to pay the rent due on the commercial restaurant space occupied by him in Grand Central Terminal.    Essentially, he has claimed that physical conditions interfere with the successful operation of his business.  These conditions allegedly include a growing homeless population that monopolizes seating intended for customers consuming food, rodents and aging facilities such as bathrooms and seating.  This post will discuss whether the tenant in this instance has a valid defense for refusing to pay his rent and other options that may be available to him.

In this case, the particular restaurant is in the center of the food court and does not require a patron to enter an area exclusively used by those being served.  It inherently allows for non-customers to occupy the restaurant space along with paying customers and may legitimately adversely affect business conditions.  The landlord in this case, the MTA, owns and manages the rest of Grand Central Terminal, making it potentially able to control adverse business conditions.

Generally, commercial leases negotiated by this author anticipate a tenant’s potential request for a rent reduction when property conditions deteriorate and forbids such action.  Most commercial leases provide that the landlord does not warrant property conditions and that a tenant therefore cannot withhold rent for diminished property conditions and the like.  Also, since this restaurant space was readily viewable and accessible prior to its being rented, the tenant could have anticipated the issues that he has recently raised and was aware of property conditions.

The region served by this law firm certainly has its share of vacant commercial spaces.  An unproductive business environment at times leads to the consideration of closure by other businesses.  When a commercial lease ends prior to its termination date, it is know in the industry as “going dark”.  It is not unusual for commercial lease terms to extend for anywhere from five to twenty years.  Of course, during such a lengthy timeframe, business conditions can change drastically, making the continued conduct of business to be impractical and not profitable.  There may have even been a lease modification between the landlord and tenant which has still not assisted the tenant in the successful conduct of its business at the premises.  Perhaps the business involves a particular food or fitness craze that is no longer desired by potential customers.  When this occurs, experienced legal counsel  should be consulted to develop the optimal strategy for the tenant’s early exit.

The tenant’s attorney  should first review the fully signed commercial lease to determine the exact date of lease termination.  If the date is far into the future, different advice may be rendered.  The lease may contain a provision as to whether the tenant has the option to terminate the lease prior to its stated termination date.  Potentially a payment will be required by the tenant in order to leave the premises early.  Such a payment may amount to a set number of months and the waiver of the refund of the security deposit.  For instance, if the early termination payment is three months rent and the waiver of the refund of one month’s security deposit, the tenant may be best served to end the lease early rather than continue with the lease that has another four years to run.  In addition, the tenant’s attorney  should make sure that any notice to the landlord regarding early termination is consistent with the notice requirements in the lease, or such notice may not be deemed to be valid.  The notice requirement may be of a certain number of days before it is effective, need to be sent by a certain method such as certified mail and may also need to be delivered to the landlord’s attorney.

Lease guarantors may also need to be considered when early termination is considered by the tenant.  Most tenants sign leases under an entity name such as a limited liability company or corporation.  In such cases, a landlord will typically seek an individual person to guaranty performance by the tenant.  Such an individual may be the principal of the entity or a third party backing the tenant’s business.  In the case of a guarantor who is the principal of the entity, such a guaranty may take the form of a “good guy” guaranty.  This type of guaranty provides that if the tenant leaves the premises in the condition as required at the end of the lease and pays all sums due to the landlord through the vacate date, then the guarantor is released from further obligation to the landlord.  When there is a good guy guaranty, terminating the lease early is low risk to the parties involved.  However, if the guarantor is a third party backing the tenant’s business, such a third party may challenge the tenant’s early vacate because it may have to fulfill the tenant’s obligations after it leaves the premises.  It is prudent to have a separate agreement between the tenant and third party guarantor to define obligations if the lease ends early.

We  endeavor to inform our readers as to relevant news pertaining to our region.  One of the Fairway grocery stores located in Rockland County  closed yesterday.  This store is part of a chain comprising approximately fifteen stores.  As reported , the tenant was in year six of its commercial lease.  Most commercial leases  are likely to be for a term of at least ten years, with options to renew.  As such, the tenant likely is vacating before the end of its lease term.  Although this author  has not personally reviewed the lease at issue, this post will discuss the provisions customarily contained in such commercial leases and the issues raised when the tenant leaves before the end of the lease.

Fairway represented that it decided to close this particular location not because of the overall financial health of its company.  Other anchor tenants  at the shopping center had already closed, which caused decreased customer volume for the grocery store that adversely affected its revenues.

Landlords  typically negotiate the following provisions in leases.  The rent due escalates through the end of the lease and the tenant forfeits its security deposit if the tenant vacates early.  In order to avoid such costly penalties, the tenant may try to find a replacement tenant to whom the lease can be assigned.  When the lease is originally negotiated, an experienced attorney  will negotiate a liberal assignment clause so that the tenant can more readily exit the lease if the business is not successful at the location.  That way, the landlord will be required to accept another tenant located by the tenant that is leaving the shopping center.

Prior blog posts have discussed the difference between the two types of landlord-tenant eviction proceedings.  To summarize, non-payment proceedings occur when a tenant fails to pay rent or other charges due to the landlord.  Holdover proceedings, which will be discussed in this post, happen when a tenant’s lease term has expired, or, in certain situations, when a tenant does not have a written lease.

First, let’s discuss situations when a tenant’s lease term has expired.  Most, if not all, written leases, contain a specific lease term.  It may be expressed in terms of a set period, such as one year, and can also give the specific date that the lease will expire.  What happens when the lease term expires, but the tenant remains in possession?  Under New York law, the tenant now becomes a month-to-month tenant.  This means that the lease terms remain in effect, but the lease has been extended for an additional monthly period, assuming that the tenant continues to pay the rent due, and continues to comply with the other lease terms.

By accepting the rent for an additional month, the landlord is agreeing to an extension of the lease for that additional month.  Let’s say the lease expires on March 31.  On April 1, the tenant pays an additional month’s rent check to his landlord, and the landlord accepts the rent, by depositing the check.  Under the law, the parties now have a month-to-month tenancy, which either party can terminate on thirty day’s notice.

The New York Times recently published an article concerning the beloved business Tea & Sympathy, a British-themed store and restaurant located in Manhattan’s Greenwich Village, and the difficulty that it has encountered meeting its lease obligations.  Closure of this business may occur  unless the landlord is willing to amend the lease terms.  Loyal customers of Tea & Sympathy have rallied in support of the business by contributing to a “Go Fund Me” page to assist the business in meeting its expenses.  This post will examine legal strategies to be employed when a tenant foresees difficulty in meeting its lease obligations.

Some of our clients with commercial leases have contacted us when they have encountered difficulty in meeting their lease obligations.  The cause of such inability can arise from various factors.  Perhaps the tenant did not engage the services of an experienced attorney when the lease was negotiated and inadvertently agreed to terms that were not advisable for a tenant.  Unanticipated factors may have come into play that increased tenant obligations beyond those that may be comfortable,  such as increased fees and real estate tax escalations of the municipality where the leased premises is located, or a major capital improvement conducted by the landlord for which the tenant agreed to pay a percentage of the cost.  Although the tenant agreed to the rent increases when the lease was signed, the tenant may have eventually become unable to sustain the rent increases once other business expenses also increased.  The business climate may have changed since the lease was signed.  For instance, the product or service offered by the tenant may also no longer be desired or is now being offered online at a lower price.  Given that most commercial leases are long-term arrangements, many of these factors can cause a tenant to be unable to meet its lease obligations.

Your attorney should first determine whether the tenant wishes to continue to conduct business at the leased premises.  If not, a lease surrender should be negotiated prior to “going dark”.  Should the tenant wish to continue at the premises and even be fortunate enough to have sympathetic customers (like those of Tea & Sympathy) who would be disappointed if the business closes, attorneys for the tenant should conduct a negotiation with the landlord towards the goal of modifying the lease so that the current terms are consistent with the tenant’s current abilities and the landlord’s current needs to cover property expenses.  Negotiation of a lease modification avoids yet another vacancy for the landlord and maintains the landlord’s cash flow.

Scheduled for this Sunday is the Super Bowl between the New England Patriots and the Los Angeles Rams for the championship of the NFL.  Recent news stories in the New York metropolitan area involve the possibility of making legal sports bets on the “big game” at casinos or racetracks located in New Jersey.  The reason for this development is a recent decision by the United States Supreme Court which invalidated a federal law prohibiting individual states from making sports betting legal, with limited exceptions.

The Supreme Court, by a seven to two vote, held that it was a violation of the Constitution to prohibit states from making their own decision regarding the legalization of sports betting.  The result is that every one of the fifty states can now legalize sports betting (or decide not to legalize sports betting), and may determine where, when, and how such bets will be made within their state.  The details of such legalization are left up to each state, including whether to allow online betting.

New Jersey, which brought the case before the Supreme Court, has already passed legislation permitting sports betting in racetracks and casinos, such as the Meadowlands Racetrack located just a few miles from New York City.  New York State has lagged behind, and has not yet legalized sports betting or decided on a structure for such potential legalization.  For the time being, New York State residents who wish to bet against the Patriots in the Super Bowl must travel to New Jersey, or to another state such as Nevada, which has authorized legal sports betting.