RSM 18, LLC v. Executive Centre, LLC

Summary

The Florida Fourth District Court of Appeal reversed a summary judgment favoring the landlord in a commercial lease dispute. The court held that the lease required the landlord to request restoration of a security deposit before the tenant could be found in breach for failing to replenish it, and the landlord’s email did not make such a request.

Holdings

1. The email did not constitute a request to restore the depleted security deposit because it merely stated that the deposit had been applied to past-due rent and declared the tenant in default; it did not ask the tenant to replenish the deposit.
2. Summary judgment for the landlord was improper because the record did not establish that the landlord made the request required by the lease before treating the tenant's failure to restore the deposit as a breach.

Questions Presented

1. Whether the landlord's December 18, 2020 email constituted the lease-required request for the tenant to restore the security deposit.
2. Whether the tenant's failure to restore the deposit within five days of the December 18 email constituted a breach and rendered the tenant ineligible to exercise the lease-extension option.

Disposition

reversed_and_remanded