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PTwo years ago, I signed a bad commercial rental agreement with a five-year lease and a three-year lock-in period. Typically, such lock-in periods are required when a builder provides a fully furnished office space. However, in my case, the office (821 sq. ft.) was already furnished, and the only additions made were two small tables. just to clarify, this we had leased the property from the builder who intended to sell this pre-leased property.
After six months, the builders sold the office to a new owner, who continued the contract with the same terms. At that point, 2 years and 6 months of the lock-in period remained. Now, after 20 months, I need to vacate the office as we are facing significant financial losses and have reduced office staff of 8 (earlier it was 20)
I informed the owner about my situation two months ago, and they initially agreed to let me leave—provided I find a replacement tenant. However, due to market changes over the past two years, there are many vacant office spaces available at lower rents, and I haven’t been able to find anyone willing to take over the lease. we also tried through brokers but even that didnt help.
I can no longer afford to continue in this space and am willing to forfeit my three-month deposit (₹1,80,000). Last month, I informed the owner that it would be my final month, but they insisted that I must pay the full rent for the remaining lock-in period, which I simply cannot afford. I extended my stay for one more month in hopes of finding a replacement, but no one has agreed to take over the lease.
A few additional concerns:
The owner has insisted on rent payments in cash throughout the lease period.
They did not allow us to register GST at this address, likely due to tax-related concerns which harmed us when we tried to apply for the business loan.
Given this situation, what are my options? I’d appreciate any legal or practical advice on how to handle this.
Thanks.
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AYou signed a contract. Unless the contract itself has an out , you can’t legally wriggle out of it.
You can try to negotiate and offer to pay some money upfront to get out of the lease.
Last option is to just vacate and stop paying, but then you run the risk of getting sued.
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