Landlord Terminated Commercial Lease Early

[clee1128]

My father leased a commercial property in NYC for a 10 year term, and with permission of landlord subleased the property to another party. My father's lease expired, but landlord claims that the lease was extended either by forgery of my father's signature by the sublessor or willingly by my father.

The landlord wanted to terminate the lease early after that extension and offered the sublessor $650,000 for early termination. The sublessor was paid that amount and agreed to vacate with no further action pursuable by her against the landlord. She collected the payment, and my father did not receive a payout from this payout. AFter settling this matter in NYC court, landlord is now filing a case against my father in the state of NJ, as it is my father's legal residence, claiming that my father now owes the $650,000 they paid out to the sublessor.

I have not yet read through the original lease, however, generally speaking, does a landlord have a right to sue for the payout cost he/she incurred if the termination was at landlord's request?

 

[clee1128]

Additional information

Another question is, if the case settled in NYC, and the parties, the sublessor and landlord agreed and reached a settlement amount without any consultation with my father, does the landlord even have jurisdiction in the state of NJ to try and reclaim the losses he incurred from the payout to the sublessor?

My father has already sought legal advice from counsel, but I'm not very confident with their service. They never once tried to discuss any strategies with my father, instead would only consult him for payments to be made. My father does not speak english perfectly, and feel they may be just trying to weed out as much money from him as they can and not even handle this case properly. This is only my personal opinion so I don't think there will be any malpractice suits, but I may convinve my father to seek a second opinion elsewhere. Please advise!