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Renting office space to a corporate tenant requires some special handling of the typical assignment clause in a lease. Usually, an assignment clause requires the owner’s consent before the tenant may assign the lease. A corporate tenant may try to get around this by simply transferring their stock to the intended assignee. That is why smart owners insist on treating a major change in the tenant’s ownership as an assignment.

With most office workers able to work from home, the pandemic hasn’t hit office tenants—and thus their landlords—as hard as it’s hit tenants in the retail, restaurant, and hospitality sectors. But with employees productive at home, office tenants are reconsidering their need for office space.

In their eagerness to get the lease signed, brokers may be inclined to make statements about what the document says (or doesn’t say) to allay the concerns of one of the parties. So, what happens if the landlord or tenant takes the broker at its word and signs the lease, only to discover that the broker’s assurances were wrong? Does the party that relied on the assurances have a valid claim for fraud against the broker? A recent case from California sheds som...

Liquidated damages clauses can be a convenient way to incentivize performance and avoid disputes over the price tag of breaches. One common use of such clauses is to require the tenant to pay predetermined rent increases in the event it violates a covenant not to open a competing business within a specific radius of the leased property. But getting courts to enforce such a provision can be difficult, as illustrated by the scenario below.  

We polled our experts about what they’ve learned so far about lease renegotiations during the COVID crisis. Here are their top 10 takeaways:

1. Importance of Tenant Communication: Landlords were more likely to grant concessions to tenants that were able to clearly articulate their COVID-19 financial hardships.

On June 2, Commercial Lease Law Insider received the First Place Award for Best Business Newsletter, presented by the Specialized Information Publisher’s Association  at its annual conference.

The judges based their decision on 2019 issues in which our editor explained:

While each lease is different, COVID-19 generally doesn’t excuse tenants’ duty to pay rent. But, in times of pandemic, having the lease on your side may not count for much. The simple fact is that for many landlords, strict enforcement of lease rent obligations is not a realistic option; it might even be illegal under the emergency decrees of some jurisdictions.

The most pressing concerns the coronavirus is likely to pose to commercial property owners stem from these three scenarios:

    What Happened: When Sears went bankrupt, its Mall of America (MoA) lease was taken over not by another retailer, restaurant, or amusement venture, but by Transform Leaseco LLC, a “very unshopping-mall-like” corpora...

Courts have made it very clear that a landlord who allows a tenant to sell counterfeit goods on its property can be liable for “contributory infringement.” Not satisfied with prosecuting small-fry retailers, Louis Vuitton, Coach, and the makers of Ray Bans and Omega watches have gone after the landlords of properties where tenants sold counterfeits of their luxury goods—and each walked away with seven-figure awards. So even if you hav...