Physically Absent Tenant Can Still Hold Over After Lease Expires

What Happened: At first it looked as though the tenant had found a buyer for his dental practice to whom it would assign the lease just as it was expiring on Dec. 31, 2019. But the deal fell through, and the tenant sent the landlord an email in February notifying it of his decision not to renew the lease. Although the dentist had moved out of the space in December, he left behind filing cabinets, chairs, TV monitors, computers, a telephone, and other personal items. So, the landlord billed him $49,419 in holdover rent. When the tenant refused to pay, the landlord sued.