Case025: court acknowledged the validity of cancellation based on 3 months’ non-payment
C O N T E N T S
Judgement of the Tokyo District Court on August 10, 2012 (Case Number: 2012-WA-3207)
Summary
- Tokyo District Court acknowledged the validity of cancellation of building lease contract based on three months’ non-payment.
Parties of the Case
- Meiken Co., Ltd. (a real estate company, the lender) vs. Relation and Capital Co., Ltd. (a real estate company, the tenant)
Claims
- Claim to surrender a building based on cancellation of lease contract; and claim for unpaid rent and unpaid common service expense
Location and Purpose of Use of the Building
- a building for business office in Tokyo
Rent
- 617,577 yen per month (tax included)
Common Service Expense
- 177,864 yen per month (tax included)
Deposit
- 3,529,014 yen
Circumstances
- In the lease contract, there was a special clause providing that the lender can cancel the contract without any demand if the tenant fails to pay the rent for two months or more.
- When the tenant did not pay the rent for three months, the lender canceled the lease contract, demanded eviction based on cancellation of the lease contract.
- The tenant argued that the cancellation is invalid because the lender did not manage the building enough and there were lots of troubles; a controller of the air conditioning facilities was broken; cleaning of exterior window was stopped; periodic replacement of the air conditioner filter was stopped; light bulbs in the shared lavatory had burn out but had not been replaced, etc.
- The court judged that the relationship of mutual trust between the lessor and the tenant was dissolved considering that the tenant was a real estate company; and one month amount of the unpaid rent was unpaid for more than two years and the lender demanded payment frequently. The court acknowledged that the lease contract was validly cancelled based on three months’ non-payment of the rent.
- However, the court judged that the lender did not perform their obligation to manage the building; and the non-performance corresponded to 10% of the common service expense. The court dismissed the lender’s claim for 10% of the common service expense, and acknowledged other part of their claims.
Comment
- This is one of the cases of eviction that cancellation of building lease contract based on three months’ non-payment was acknowledged.
