Jacksonville, FL asked in Landlord - Tenant for Florida

Q: Can a commercial landlord refuse my option to renew letter, claim it is a month-month lease and force me 30 days early?

My commercial lease states "Tenant may renew the lease for one extended term of 1 year, Tenant shall exercise such renewal option, if at all, by giving written notice to Landlord not less than 90 days prior to the expiration of the Initial Term. The renewal term shall be at the rental set forth below and otherwise upon the same covenants, conditions and provisions as provided in this Lease. The Landlord may decline to renew the lease by notifying the Tenant in writing 120 days prior to the expiration." I am a private school on a church property for 6 yrs. I gave my notice to renew in April. He never gave notice of non renewal. (I would have had to receive it in April). In June he emailed saying he was considering not renewing. October a text message saying same thing. I requested a lease several times, never got one. He claims I am on month to month and now he gave me a letter/notice (not a legal doc) saying he wants me out 30 days early. Is this legal?

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1 Lawyer Answer
Seril L Grossfeld
Seril L Grossfeld
Answered
  • Fort Lauderdale, FL

A: Well you are in a difficult situation. If the landlord did not properly follow the terms of the lease by notifying you in advance that you could not renew and then ignored or notice to renew you are probably looking at a costly and distracting legal battle to determine who was right or wrong. As far as the 30 day notice, it only needs to be in the form of a letter, I don't know what kind of "legal" notice you were looking for. If you haven't spoken to an attorney who is knowledgeable of commercial landlord/tenant law, which is not quite the same as residential, get a copy of your lease and the notices you mentioned to such an attorney in your area as soon as possible to try to negotiate a resolution before litigation begins.

Bruce Alexander Minnick agrees with this answer

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