What happens when the tenant wants to leave the premises before the time stipulated in the rental agreement ends?
The Urban Leases Act, 29/1994, regulates housing leases and premises leases. As for housing leases, the Law determines what are the consequences of the anticipated termination of the contract by the lessee, but in the case of leases of business premises, the provisions of the Law is that they should be at what they had agreed lessor and lessee at the time of making the lease.
One of the problems in the application of the Law originated when in a lease of business premises the parties had not foreseen the consequences of the anticipated resolution or when, there are, the clause became void because its wording was confusing and not I understood what the parties meant, or for any other cause. In all these cases, the courts had been applying, by analogy, the same solution that the Urban Leasing Law had provided for the lease of homes in which it is allowed that after six months of the contract the tenant can resolve at any time by notifying the landlord thirty days in advance.
However, this criterion seems to have changed following the Judgment of the Civil Chamber of the Supreme Court of October 3, 2017 in which the Court has declared that in the event of an early termination of the lease of business premises, it must be at what the parties would have agreed, and that if they did not agree to anything, the term provided in the contract must be fully complied with without applying the provisions of the housing lease by analogy and then gives a classification of the assumptions that may occur:
• In the event that the contract states that the lessee may terminate the contract before its expiration by paying the lessor an amount as a penalty: In this case the court could agree to a penalty reduction if it considers that otherwise the lessor would unfairly enrich.
• If the contract does not state the power that the lessee party can terminate the contract in advance and, however, this, demands its early termination:
a / In the event that the leasing party opposes and requires compliance with the contract, the court should force the lessee to pay all the income until the end of the contract.
b / In the event that the leasing party agrees to terminate the contract early but requires compensation for the damages suffered, the lessor should prove what economic damage is caused by the early termination of the contract (loss of earnings) and the court may reduce (moderate) the compensation if it considers that the amount claimed is not sufficiently justified.
One of the problems in the application of the Law originated when in a lease of business premises the parties had not foreseen the consequences of the anticipated resolution or when, there are, the clause became void because its wording was confusing and not I understood what the parties meant, or for any other cause. In all these cases, the courts had been applying, by analogy, the same solution that the Urban Leasing Law had provided for the lease of homes in which it is allowed that after six months of the contract the tenant can resolve at any time by notifying the landlord thirty days in advance.
However, this criterion seems to have changed following the Judgment of the Civil Chamber of the Supreme Court of October 3, 2017 in which the Court has declared that in the event of an early termination of the lease of business premises, it must be at what the parties would have agreed, and that if they did not agree to anything, the term provided in the contract must be fully complied with without applying the provisions of the housing lease by analogy and then gives a classification of the assumptions that may occur:
• In the event that the contract states that the lessee may terminate the contract before its expiration by paying the lessor an amount as a penalty: In this case the court could agree to a penalty reduction if it considers that otherwise the lessor would unfairly enrich.
• If the contract does not state the power that the lessee party can terminate the contract in advance and, however, this, demands its early termination:
a / In the event that the leasing party opposes and requires compliance with the contract, the court should force the lessee to pay all the income until the end of the contract.
b / In the event that the leasing party agrees to terminate the contract early but requires compensation for the damages suffered, the lessor should prove what economic damage is caused by the early termination of the contract (loss of earnings) and the court may reduce (moderate) the compensation if it considers that the amount claimed is not sufficiently justified.
Therefore, in the leases of business premises, before an eventual unilateral withdrawal of the lessee, we will have to carefully analyze the wording of the contract to know in what case we are, given that the consequences are very different in both cases.
