Commercial lease news

Commercial lease news Philadelphia Municipal Court released its notice to the bar and to clients yesterday as follows:

On May 21, 2020, Governor Wolf amended his May 7, 2020 Executive Order. The court has received an inquiry relating to the filing of a landlord-tenant complaint that is based solely on the alleged breach of a condition of the lease. The court is issuing this written statement in response to that inquiry.

The second sentence of the Governor’s May 7, 2020 Executive Order provided that: “All eviction proceedings requiring compliance with the Landlord and Tenant Act of 1951 and the Manufactured Home Community Rights Act cannot commence for 60 days until July 10, 2020.” This court previously interpreted that sentence as precluding the
filing of any landlord-tenant complaint until July 10, 2020. This court noted that the Governor did not make any distinction between cases based on residential and nonresidential leases or exempt leases in which the notice to
quit requirement is waived from the moratorium of filing a landlord-tenant complaint before July 10, 2020.

Governor Wolf’s May 21, 2020 Amendment to his May 7, 2020 Executive Order adds Section 4, which is titled “Scope of Order” and provides that:

The provisions of this Order and the suspension of the Acts under this Order apply only to matters involving the
nonpayment of monies as well as to those proceedings related to removal of any tenant solely because the tenant has held over or exceeded the term of a lease. The Order does not apply to suspend notice requirements relating to evictions for breaches of any other covenants.

In accordance with the Governor’s Amendment, the court will not reject for filing any landlord-tenant complaint that is based solely on the alleged breach of a condition of the lease. Before filing a landlord-tenant complaint based solely on the alleged breach of a condition of the lease, filers should make sure that
the leased property is not a “covered property” under the Section 4024 of the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (“CARES Act”).

When a leased property is subject to the CARES Act, landlords are precluded from filing a landlord-tenant complaint until July 26, 2020.

See us for more commercial lease news and updates at Kenny, Burns & McGill.