Commercial Landlord - Back Rent

[businessman]

Hi, I have $80K in back rent owed to a commercial landlord. Our rent was $7200/month and we started to fall behind when the recession hit a year into our lease.

We plan on including the lease in our Chapter 7, as our business went bust, but I've been hearing from a friend of his that there is language in our lease that basically makes me accountable for the entire term of the lease whether or not I file bankruptcy. I looked at the lease and wasn't able to find anything, but I may be missing the legalese.

Is this kind of language even legal to include in a lease? Is it possible for a lease to circumvent a bankruptcy?

[biotechsolution]

No. Nothing they can put in the lease can overturn a bankruptcy discharge.

[keepmine]

No. Nothing they can put in the lease can overturn a bankruptcy discharge.

Agreed! Language of that sort violates a raftload of protections of the bk code. Here's an article that provides a laundry list of the applicable sections of the code.

http://www.abiworld.org/AM/Template.cfm?Section=Working_Group_Proposals&Template=/CM/ContentDisplay.cfm&ContentID=36462

[businessman]

Thank you for the response. My former partner was calling it a 'captive lease' and that bankruptcy would not apply in that case. Just needed to know if he's just trying to intimidate me.

[jeenamenon]

Self-Help is a legal term that your lawyer to explain, but the right to self-help very general give a landlord to accelerate some of its shares in order to resolve some disputes with his bearings.