What Happened: A landlord demanded that a consulting firm tenant pay $389,984 in rent arrears. After receiving only a partial payment of $83,333, the landlord sent the tenant a lease default notice in July and a termination notice in August. Despite these actions, the tenant neither paid the balance nor surrendered the premises. So, the landlord took his claim to court. 

Trial was set to begin on Jan. 13, but the tenant filed for bankruptcy on Jan. 12. The landlord claimed that the “automatic stay” provisions of the bankruptcy law didn’t apply in this case because the lease was terminated in August well before the tenant filed for bankruptcy. The tenant countered that the landlord’s notices of default and election to terminate were invalid because they were vague and didn’t meet the notice requirements of the lease.

Ruling: The federal bankruptcy court in New York ruled that the notices were valid and that the lease terminated in August. 

Reasoning: The tenant acknowledged that it received the default and termination notices and that both notices were properly delivered. Even so, it claimed the notices were invalid because they didn’t list the right address information or expressly quote the termination provision of the lease. 

The court rejected the argument, finding that, despite these minor flaws, the addresses used in the notices complied with the lease requirements and the wording of the default notice was sufficient to put a sophisticated commercial tenant on notice of potential termination. 

“There is nothing in the Lease that required the Landlord to repeat the provisions of the Lease in a default notice or otherwise to spell out, for the tenant, the specific remedies that the Landlord might elect to pursue if the defaults are not cured,” concluded the court. 

• In re Rock 51, LLC, 2025 Bankr. LEXIS 748, 2025 WL 968653