Opinion ID: 1406950
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Counterclaim for Rent

Text: Defendant Peay's counterclaim for rent is grounded on the facts as recited above. The court found that plaintiffs owed rent of $400 for February, $400 for March, 1975 and $450 for the last month of the five-year lease, and entered judgment accordingly. By way of cross-appeal plaintiffs attack that finding and judgment. As a general proposition, where a tenant offers to surrender a lease and the landlord agrees to accept the surrender, that extinguishes any liability for rent after such surrender. But, it does not extinguish rights which have accrued beforehand. [7] Since the lease required payment of the rent in advance on the first of each month and no surrender occurred until March 12, 1975, we see no impropriety in the awards of $400 for February and March, totalling $800. This is true because the March rent had become due on March 1st. [8] However, in regard to the $450 awarded for the last months rent of the five-year term, the situation is different. That payment was not to become due until March 15, 1975. Inasmuch as there had been a surrender by the plaintiffs and an acceptance by the defendants on March 12, 1975, that payment never did become due. It is therefore necessary to reduce the judgment by that amount. Affirmed, except that the judgment of $1,250 on the counterclaim is reduced to $800. The parties to bear their own costs. HENRIOD, C.J., and ELLETT, MAUGHAN and WILKINS, JJ., concur.