Court Opinion

ID: 9602259
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 01:52:40.313042+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:02:01.821278
License: Public Domain

Brailsford, Justice
(dissenting) :
Finding no ambiguity in the relevant provision of the lease, I respectfully dissent. Fee simple title to the leased premises, land and buildings, is in the lessors, subject only to the leasehold rights of the lessees. The right asserted is the lessees’ option to continue occupancy under the lease for an additional period of ten years at a rental to be agreed upon or arbitrated. The rental is the consideration required of the lessees for continued occupancy of the lessors’ land and buildings. To say that the rent shall be arbitrated only with respect to that part of the leased premises which existed at the inception of the original term, is to write an important provision into the lease which the parties omitted entirely. Absent a contrary expression, the rent to be fixed must be related to the premises to be occupied, and that, indisputably, includes the lessors’ land and improvements. However, the lessors’ claim to rent for personal property of the lessees -used in the operation of the motel is ill-founded. Title to such property will remain in the lessees during an extension of the term.
Bussey, J., concurs.