Two weeks ago, we cautioned against thinking that because we know the “general” law, we know the law in a particular jurisdiction. Yes, there is a lot of commonality on a broad level – if a tenant doesn’t pay the rent, it can lose its right to stay – but just what a landlord has to do (the needle it needs to thread) varies greatly from place to place. Today, we’ll give a more focused example in the context of explaining why the (misnamed) waiver of subrogation is important.

At the end of the day, who really pays the insurance premiums for the property – landlord or tenant? When a lease requires the tenant to pay or reimburse its landlord for insurance premiums, isn’t the tenant really paying the premiums? When the stated rent includes the then-existing amount of insurance premiums and the tenant pays only for increases beyond that “base” amount, isn’t the tenant really paying the premiums? Even when the stated rent is “all-in,” might it not be that the tenant is really paying the insurance premiums? [Read more…]