Breaking lease

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drflexx

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If a building that we lease office space at was sold and the contract states that with the sale the contract carries over, is there a statute of limitations on the new owner establishing a new contract/lease with the tenants that remain in the building after the sale? In other words, is the new owner required to make up a new lease within a certain time, or is the old lease good until the lease term ends?
Also the old owner remains as the managing landlord and is not keeping up with maintenance and upkeep of the building, is this grounds to break the lease?
 
The current lease carries over until it would normally end.

Whether a commercial tenant can break a lease (without the risk of a financial penalty for doing so) based on maintenance issues would depend on the severity of the issues involved.

It appears you are still trying to break your lease (as before) so you can expand your business?

Gail
 
Yes we are trying to get out of this lease, and we are trying to find a "smoking gun" so that we will have no issues. The owner is not willing to budge and we need to expand. I read in a tenant manual at the library that if a maintenance issue is not satisfactorily resolved, that after numerous repair attempts a tenant could break the lease. I am not sure if this includes commercial leases. The item is a heater/a.c. unit that is over 25 years old and breaks down constantly, causing us to have to modify our work schedule. Sometimes we can not work because it is too cold to have the public come in (it is a healthcare facility). Owner keeps wanting to fix instead of replace the unit, but it breaks down at least once per week (he is responsible according to lease).
I see one other thing on this lease, an addendum was included to change a term within the lease that relates to heirs. It was included to say that if my father dies or becomes incapacitated that the lease is void and not the responsibility of his heirs. The addendum was signed by my father and the old owner, but I can't find where my father actually signed the lease itself. Any chance this voids the lease?
 
It is important to remember that commercial tenants have less rights than residential tenants.

The issue with repairs is not that a unit keeps breaking down but rather that, when notified, the landlord/management fails to respond to the repair request within a reasonable amount of time. If the landlord responds to the repair requests, even just to repair instead of replace, legally they are meeting their obligations.

No, your lease is not void.

Gail
 
Thank you. I wonder what the stipulation on "a reasonable amount of time" is considering that the unit breaking down causes us not to be able to conduct business. We arrive and find that the unit has broken down and have to reschedule our patients, and in some cases we lose the patient when they can not reschedule or need immediate attention. At times the landlord responds in a day, at others it takes days. Sometimes he tells the maintenance worker that he has no money for the part and tells him to ask us for it, even though the unit is his resposibility.
I realize that I am turning stones, but I must find a way out, so I am turning them all!
 
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