New Landlord wants the Tenant out.

Hi

This week I had discussion with a Commercial Tenant whose new landlord wants them out. The Commercial property had been sold and the new owner gave the Tenant 30 days notice.

Opps.. The landlord needs to check his lease – with a Commercial Lease, if the Tenant pays on time and does not breach any conditions of the lease; the landlord has to treat them as if they owned the property until the lease expires. In this case they have another 4 years. In this case they have no right to renew so the owner could advise the tenant of the plan not to renew in writing and in a number of cases (check the lease) this is required 3-6 months before expiry of the lease. If the lease did allow for an extension of the lease term, sale of the property would not extinguish this.

What option does the Tenant have?
A) They should take Legal advice to enforce their rights.

What option does the new landlord have?
A) Sit back and wait for the end of the lease
B) Compensate the tenants to cancel the lease e.g. moving costs, extra lease expenses and bonus to leave.
C) If the landlord purchased the property believing it was only under a monthly tenancy and the tenants would leave at settlement, then the landlord needs to check the contract of purchase and form 1. If this was incorrect, they could seek legal advice on compensation from the seller.

The above is not a legal opinion and is just given as a discussion point on Commercial property in South Australia for current legislation in SA refer to http://www.legislation.sa.gov.au