Posted by Kyle Miller on November 09, 2006 at 11:16:56:
I understand that this is a legal issue, but you may want to repost to http://www.creonline.com/commercial-real-estate/wwwboard5/index.html, since it concerns commercial real estate. There are quite a few people on that board involved with retail issues.
However, without the full lease, nobody in either forum is going to be able to give qualified advice. The more prudent course of action to understand your legal position would be to have your attorney do a quick review of your lease. Along with use & occupancy clauses, there are usually provisions/penalties for a retail tenant “going dark”.
The best course of action would probably be to approach the tenant about buying out the lease. I.e. they pay you some of what they would owe over the remaining lease term, saving them money and also saving you the time/money/hassle of eviction. Then, you use the time/money to put in another tenant (some of the money could be used to make it more economical for the tenant to go in), quickly boosting the traffic count and economic viability of the location for the development/any other tenants you may have there.
Of course, if this tenant has already stopped paying altogether, you’d need to contact your attorney immediately. This could still entail the tenant’s buyout of the lease.
Good luck with it.
Best regards,