What Happened: A medical tenant leased office space under a five-year lease with two five-year extension options that the tenant had to exercise by giving the landlord written notice by certified mail, return receipt requested, between six and 12 months before the original lease expired. Failure to provide notice would be deemed an election not to extend, the lease stipulated. 

When the original lease expired five years later, the tenant didn’t send the required notice but remained in the premises and paid the higher renewal rent provided for in the agreement. The landlord didn’t object. 

The same thing happened when the five-year extension expired. But two years into the second extension, the tenant notified the landlord that it had “outgrown” the space and planned to move. A year later, it vacated the space and the landlord sued for breach of lease and failure to act in good faith. The court dismissed the case without a trial. 

Ruling: The New Jersey appeals court affirmed summary judgment in the tenant’s favor. 

Reasoning: It was undisputed that the tenant never furnished the extension notice that the original lease required, but it was also undisputed that the landlord accepted the tenant’s rent payments throughout both extension periods. Putting two and two together, the court said it didn’t need a trial to determine that the landlord and tenant’s conduct amounted to a waiver of the written notice requirement. Result: The extension tenancy was month-to-month, and the tenant had the right to move out at any time upon one month’s notice. 

• Baseline Assocs., Inc. v. Konigsberg, 2024 N.J. Super. Unpub. LEXIS 2718