Despite rumor and gossip to the contrary, most late notices to elect one right or another will not be honored by the courts. To put this another way, notices such as those to extend a lease’s term will most often be subject to the “time being of the essence” rule, even if those words don’t appear in the document. Yes, there are cases to the contrary. Yes, some jurisdictions are more forgiving than others, but don’t count on it.
A lot of us think that courts will give life to late notices under the “so what’s the big deal, the recipient (usually a landlord) wasn’t prejudiced” rule. We don’t know how to say this more clearly, “don’t count on it.” If you send an unequivocal election notice, within the agreed-upon time limits, to the right places, by the agreed-upon method, you don’t “even have to get into it.” Why lose sleep at night? [Read more…]
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Here’s a “bonus” posting, but you’ll need to decide if “bonus” is the right description. This is somewhat autobiographical but, as they say, “write from your own life experience.” This week we received two notices that were sent to us by certified mail. That’s not unusual because we often receive notices by certified mail. After all, we are named in many documents as a secondary, but required, place to where notices must be sent. What was unusual was that the certified mail envelopes themselves were inside a larger envelope that was mailed to us, by ordinary mail, directly from the original sender of the notices. The original notices were mailed on March 9. We eventually received them on April 16. 
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