Can a landlord refuse to renew a lease because of a subsequent breach of the lease agreement?

British Columbia, Canada


The following excerpt is from Clark Auto Body Ltd. v. Integra Custom Collision Ltd., 2006 BCSC 1730 (CanLII):

Counsel for the landlord submits that even if the tenant is not in breach at the time of the exercise of the renewal option, a subsequent breach during the term of the existing lease justifies the landlord in refusing to renew. In this regard, counsel relies on the following passage from Loveless v. Fitzgerald (1909), 1909 CanLII 8 (SCC), 42 S.C.R. 254: The appellant maintains that the second condition means not that the lessees must as a condition precedent fulfil their covenants throughout the entire original term, but that observance of them shall be required as a condition precedent only up to the time when notice requiring a further term is given and that a breach thereafter is not of a condition precedent, but merely of an ordinary covenant giving to the landlord a right of forfeiture of the further term vested in the tenants by their notice. It is obvious that if this contention should prevail, the lessees, by giving the requisite notice for extension immediately after taking their lease, would entirely eliminate observance of their covenants as a condition precedent to their right to have such extension.

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