Glenn S. Demby

Tenants may insist on the right to install special equipment on the roof of the building so they can operate their business within the space they lease from you. Among other things, reserve the right to make the tenant physically shield or screen the equipment so that it doesn’t create a public eyesore that mars your building’s image and appearance.  

They may result in artificial reductions in gross sales.

A tenant notified its landlord that it was experiencing financial difficulties and needed to terminate its two-year office lease six months early. Email and phone conversations ensued, but no written agreement was reached. So, when the tenant stopped paying rent and vacated the building with sev...

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. 

The bad news is that you may not be able to completely contract out of your duty to mitigate damages; the good news is that you can limit it. But to do so, you need to add specific language to your lease. Here’s how to draft and negotiate a fair, reasonable, and legally enforceable mitigation of damages limitations clause, along with a Model Lease Clause that you can adapt for your own use. 

What Happened: The federal government leased two floors of an office in Queens to house the Field Office of the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services. The 15-year lease included the following clause ...

What Happened: Tenants, an elementary school operated as a Delaware limited liability company and the husband and wife who owned it, wanted to renew their 10-year lease after it expired. But rather than an extension, the owners insisted on a lease amendment naming the LLC as the only tenant ...