Options to Renew Leases – Risks for Landlords and Tenants

“It is only where the enforcement of a contractual term would be so unfair, unreasonable or unjust so as to be contrary to public policy that a court may refuse to enforce it” (extract from first  judgment below)

Leases often give tenants an option to extend or renew at the end of the current term, and tenants who lose sight of the value and importance of such an option are flirting with disaster. 


Tenants 

In a nutshell, when the time comes to exercise your option do comply fully with the clause’s requirements. Make sure also that you understand and accept the exact wording of the renewal clause before you sign the lease. Drop the ball in either respect, and if your landlord wants you out for whatever reason, you will struggle to convince a court to come to your rescue by forcing an unwilling landlord to renew. 

Four recent court cases - one in the Constitutional Court, two in the Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) and one in the High Court) illustrate, but before we get there here’s a quick note for landlords…


Landlords 

This is of course also highly relevant to you - the last thing you want is for a poorly-worded clause to lumber you with an unwanted tenant, or an unrealistically low rental, or even just with a bitter and expensive legal fight over what the clause actually means. Nor, as we shall see below, do you want to run the risk of a court holding the terms of your lease to be so unfair as to be unenforceable.


First case: Non-compliance v unfairness, Ubuntu and public policy

• As part of a black empowerment initiative, a business hiring out tools and building equipment to builders had set up four of its ex-employees in a franchise operation. The business premises were let to them by the building owner, a trust linked to the hiring business.
  
  
• The leases were for 5 years and contained options to renew for a further 5 years, on the giving of notice six months before termination, and subject to the rental for the renewal period being agreed. A mechanism for the agreement of rental was set out in each lease. The franchise agreements were for 10 years, presumably indicating an anticipation of renewal.
  
  
• The tenants didn’t exercise their options on time, and when they did try to do so, it wasn’t in the terms required by the lease. 
  
  
• When the landlord told two of the tenants to vacate (the others were offered a month to month temporary arrangement), they asked the High Court for an order allowing them to remain. They conceded that on the strict terms of the leases they would have no case but argued that on the basis of fairness and Ubuntu the leases should not be terminated.
  
  
• After winning in the High Court but losing on appeal to the Supreme Court of Appeal, the tenants took their appeal to the Constitutional Court, explaining “that they were unsophisticated and not versed in the niceties of the law.” 
  
  
• The Court dismissed the appeal, holding that although Constitutional values such as Ubuntu (which encompasses values of fairness, reasonableness and justice), “form important considerations in the balancing exercise required to determine whether a contractual term, or its enforcement, is contrary to public policy … It is only where the enforcement of a contractual term would be so unfair, unreasonable or unjust so as to be contrary to public policy that a court may refuse to enforce it.” 
  
  
• In other words, the highest court in the land has held that if you want to avoid the strict terms of the lease you must show that they are against public policy. You can use constitutional values to do that because those values “underlie and inform the substantive law of contract” but the acid test remains – have you proved that enforcement of the lease’s terms would be contrary to public policy? The tenants in this case had, said the Court, failed to do so. They have 30 days to leave. 

Second case: Renewal clause void for vagueness

For ten years a tenant occupied premises in terms of an original lease and agreed renewals. When it gave notice of a further renewal, the parties were unable to agree on a rental, the renewal clause providing that … “the rental and costs shall be mutually agreed upon in writing between the Landlord and the Tenant when the right of renewal is exercised”.

The landlord applied for eviction and the SCA held that the term was unenforceable, being merely an agreement to agree rather than containing any “legally enforceable obligations”. The renewal clause was void for vagueness and the tenant was given 14 calendar days to vacate. 


Third case: No agreement on rental, too late to call in a third party

A tenant gave notice of renewal, the lease in this case providing that “the rental consideration will be determined by agreement between the parties based on the prevailing market rental’s applicable to the property”, and if they could not agree, a third party would determine it.

The lease, held the SCA, had terminated because the tenant had only tried to invoke the third party clause after the lease had lapsed. The rental must be fixed or agreed for the renewal to be valid.


Fourth case: No notice of renewal and no deadlock breaking mechanism

The tenant in this case failed to give notice of renewal on time, his attempts to negotiate an extension with the landlord failed, and the High Court ordered his eviction. The tenant’s argument that over the years it had become “customary” for the landlord just to remind him about an upcoming expiry and ask him if he wanted to renew was, said the Court, irrelevant because the clause itself was not “definite and complete”. 

The clause provided “that the parties agree in writing to the rental, conditions and provisions of the proposed lease” and even if the tenant had given proper notice of an intention to renew, the parties would still have had to negotiate terms, and there was no “deadlock breaking mechanism” in the lease.