When you go through the process of selecting the best commercial property for your business, you doubtlessly put in a great deal of thought, research and analysis. When you’ve finished that and finally made a selection, the last thing you want is for some unforeseen pitfall to unravel everything you were hoping to achieve. To make sure your business avoids that, you need to be certain you have a skilled South Florida real estate attorney on your side who knows how to uncover all of the information you need.
One of those unforeseen “pitfalls” can be a restrictive covenant, and, as one Palm Beach County entity discovered recently, those use restrictions are probably going to be enforceable against you, even if you didn’t know about them.
Back in 2005, the owner of a commercial property in Seminole County, looking to sell, worked out with its tenant an early termination of the tenant’s lease. The two entities executed a “lease termination agreement.” At the insistence of the tenant, who ran a gas station, convenience store and restaurant on the other side of the street, that contract contained a clause that said that no buyer “nor any successor or assign will operate, lease, sell or otherwise transfer the Property for use as (i) a convenience store, (ii) a fast food hamburger restaurant, (iii) tobacco/beverage store, (iv) gasoline sales,” or any combination of the above business types.