Tenant Prevails in Preserving Valuable Lease Space in Downtown New York City

In what has become a winning formula for our clients, the Real Estate Litigation team at Morrison Cohen was awarded summary judgment by the Supreme Court of the State of New York, granting a Yellowstone injunction and other declaratory relief to our client, a tenant, which prevents the landlord from terminating the lease to relist the property for higher rent.

After our client took an assignment of a lease for commercial space in an upscale rental building in lower Manhattan, the landlord tried buy out our client from the lease. When our client rejected the offer, the landlord tried to effectuate a termination of the lease by alleging a non-monetary default in order to recapture the space that had been leased to our client on very favorable terms. Specifically, the landlord claimed it did not receive prior consent on the assignment of the lease to our client, even though the lease stated that such prior consent was not required. 

The Court ultimately agreed with our client noting that the lease as well as the landlord affirmed prior consent was not required, and that the landlord suffered no prejudice with the assignment of the lease to our client. The Court held that our client had the right to cure the default and also awarded our client its attorney fees incurred in the action.

Business Litigation Partner Aaron B. Lauchheimer led the successful effort on behalf of our client.

The case is The Jan Companies of NY LLC III v. 106 Fulton Street Owner LLC, Index No. 651425/2018, in the Supreme Court of the State of New York, County of New York. 

A copy of the decision can be found here.