"Notice" Provisions Matter

Often times people get too casual regarding Notice provisions contained in contracts and it can be costly. Notice of course is simply how a party to a contract must communicate contractual issues to another contract party...it's whether you can fax an attorney modification letter or lease termination notice to another party. And quite frequently before things get contentious Notice formalities get ignored and nobody cares. But if things ever get to the litigation stage, Notice formalities can be everything so do Notice right all the time.

Here's the recent case (Genesco v. 33 North LaSalle Partners, No. 1-07-2782) where simply a tenant didn't follow the lease's Notice provisions and therefore the tenant DID NOT properly terminate the lease. The case gets a bit complex with various equitable arguments but the basic fact was simple: tenant sent lease termination to the wrong address. So instead of a $30k lease termination fee they're on the hook for the rest of an approx. $1 million lease (high-end Loop property).