What is Commercial Eviction?

A commercial eviction is the expulsion of a tenant from a commercial property. A commercial landlord may take steps to have a tenant removed from his property due to non-payment of the rent or because of a breach of the lease. He may also take steps to evict a commercial tenant who remains in his property after the lease has ended. Commercial eviction usually involves properties that have been rented out for business use rather than as residences. Since, typically, no one is supposed to live in a commercial property, the laws regarding evictions often differ from those governing residential properties.

Commercial properties are usually rented out to tenants who want to run businesses from them. The tenant in such a situation owns the business he runs, but rents the commercial property. As such, he can be evicted from the property in accordance with the commercial landlord-tenant laws in his jurisdiction as well as the unique terms of the lease.

The reasons for which a person can be evicted from a commercial property may vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. In most jurisdictions, however, the most common reason for a commercial eviction is the non-payment of rent. If a person is required to make a commercial rent payment on the first of every month and he fails to do so, his landlord may have grounds to evict him. The number of days that must pass between a late payment and an eviction may depend on both the jurisdiction's laws and the terms of the commercial lease. Some allow for commercial evictions within days of a missed rental payment.

In most jurisdictions, commercial landlords are required to provide notice before they begin legal eviction proceedings. In some places, for example, commercial landlords are required to give the their tenants three days' notice before they begin efforts to expel them. Some leases and landlord-tenant laws allow for longer notice times, however.

An individual who receives a commercial eviction notice doesn't necessarily have to leave the property right away. Instead, he may sue the landlord in court and win the right to stay or compensation for the financial damages he will incur in relocating his business. In many cases, however, judges decide on behalf of the landlord, and the commercial tenant is ordered to leave or even locked out of the rental property.