A little more than eight years ago, we wrote: “[I]t seems like a fair number of lenders think the “A” in “SNDA” stands for “Amendment,” i.e., an amendment of the lease.” [Click HERE for more about that.] Today, we look at an Estoppel Letter and see whether the initial “E” stands for “Emendation.” [We found a website explaining the following: “Amend is to change something, usually a document or personal behavior, to make it better. Emend is to correct something, usually in a text, to fix an error.”] Either way, SNDA or Estoppel Letter, let’s stop trying to use those documents to amend or emend a lease.
In an April 15, 2020 published decision, a United States Court of Appeals court looked at the history of a lease and other lease-related documents for a single-tenant office complex. The validity of the lease and five subsequent amendments was not at issue even if there was some dispute over their meaning. All were signed by both the landlord and tenant. On the other hand, the court was presented with two other documents – one was a letter from the landlord to its tenant (signed only by the landlord), and the other an estoppel letter (seemingly) signed only by the tenant and given to the property’s buyer. The estoppel letter, in its recitals, referred to the landlord’s letter as one of the lease’s amending documents. [Read more…]
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