Commercial Landlords

Not uncommonly, the timing of a commercial tenant’s bankruptcy filing will correspond with a landlord seeking to evict the tenant or institute foreclosure proceedings.  What is the effect of a dismissal requested by a commercial debtor after the landlord has successfully prevailed in the underlying bankruptcy case?  The recent decision of Scarborough-St. James Corporation…

With several significant recent bankruptcy filings such as RadioShack and Saladworks, tenant bankruptcies become a greater risk for commercial landlords. Yet some landlords are not familiar with the rights provided to them under the Bankruptcy Code, nor are they aware of the protections provided to a tenant in bankruptcy. For example, certain lease provisions are…

With the RadioShack Corporation bankruptcy action affecting the rights of many commercial landlords, it is important to determine ways that landlords can protect themselves during the course of the bankruptcy action.

First, requiring a third-party guarantor is one way in which a landlord may obtain better creditor protection when entering into a lease. The automatic…

Security deposits are considered property of the bankruptcy estate, and as such, are generally required to be returned to the debtor.  Even so,  landlords are permitted in certain instances to setoff their rejection damage claim against the security deposit.  This benefits a landlord for two reasons.  First, instead of returning the deposit to the debtor-tenant,…

Landlords may be able to recover attorneys’ fees incurred when a debtor-tenant seeks to assume the lease, or assume and assign the lease to a third party.  To recover attorney’s fees, however, the landlord must meet several criteria.  First, the lease must expressly state that the landlord is entitled to recover attorneys’ fees as additional…

Section 365(d)(3) of the Bankruptcy Code requires the debtor-tenant to “timely perform all the obligations …. under any unexpired lease of nonresidential real property” until such time that the tenant assumes or rejects the lease.  If a tenant files for bankruptcy and remains in possession of the property, yet fails to pay rent as provided…

In conjunction with assuming the lease,  the Bankruptcy Code allows the debtor-tenant to assign the lease to a third party.  The party who is assigned the lease must provide the landlord with adequate assurance that it can meet the financial obligations of the lease.  If the party who is assuming the lease cannot provide the…

Assumption of the lease is permissible even if the terms of the lease expressly prohibit assumption.  Section 365 of the Bankruptcy Code requires a debtor-tenant to meet certain criteria in order to “assume” a lease.  First, and most importantly, the tenant must cure any and all existing defaults, both monetary and non-monetary.  Second, the debtor-tenant…

If the debtor-tenant seeks to terminate and surrender the lease, that is “reject it”, the landlord may be entitled to a “rejection damage” claim.  A landlord is not entitled to the full amount of unpaid obligations for the balance of the lease.  Instead, Section 502(b)(6) limits the recovery a landlord may receive for “rejection damages.”…