Opinion ID: 1288535
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: consent to transfer

Text: Finally, Diss contends the Master and Court of Appeals erred in refusing to impute a reasonableness requirement into PRT's refusal to consent to a transfer of the lease. We disagree. There is a split of authority as to whether or not a landlord may refuse consent to a transfer or assignment arbitrarily, or whether the lessor must have a reasonable basis to deny consent. Annotation: Withholding Consent-Assignment of Lease, 21 A.L.R.4th 188 (1983); 2 Powell on Real Property, § 17.04[1]: Johnson, Correctly Interpreting Long Term Leases Pursuant To Modern Contract Law; Toward a Theory of Relational Leases, 74 Virg.L.Rev. 751 (1988). Courts taking the view that refusal to consent to a transfer must be reasonable tend to adopt the Restatement view which states: A restraint on alienation without the consent of the landlord of the tenant's interest in the leased property is valid, but the landlord's consent to an alientation by the tenant cannot be withheld unreasonably, unless a freely negotiated provision in the lease gives the landlord an absolute right to withhold consent. Restatement (Second) of Property § 15.2(2) (1976). A number of courts, however, adhere to the common law view that consent may be arbitrarily refused. 21 A.L.R.4th at § 3. The Court of Appeals refused to adopt a reasonableness requirement, finding the courts of this state without authority to re-write a contract. We concur with this result. The judicial function of a court of law is to enforce contracts as made by the parties and not to re-write or distort, under the guise of judicial construction, the terms of an unambiguous contract. Patterson v. Aetna Life Ins. Co., 248 S.C. 374, 149 S.E.2d 915 (1966). Here, the contract clearly provides that the leases may be transferred upon consent of the lessor. There is no stated reasonableness requirement and this Court declines to read one into the contract. If the parties had chosen to limit Lessor's ability to deny consent, they could have so stated in the contract. Accordingly, we find Lessor acted within its rights in denying consent to transfer the lease.