Legal Question in Landlord & Tenant Law in California

Commercial tenant having problem with landlord about sign

I am a tenant in a General Net Lease for over a year now. My business is

tattoo. The landlord (plaza owner) is giving us problems about our sign. He

said he doesn't want a tattoo shop in the plaza and we have to remove the

word ''Tattoo'' from our sign. We've tried negotiating to make the word tattoo

smaller, but he said no. His property manager said that he has the right to

do this because the contract states: ''If otherwise permitted by law, Lessee

may at Lessee's expense, erect a sigh or signs approved in advance by the

City and the Lessor, designating the names and type of business conducted

on the Premises.'' We are a small business and really need to have ''tattoo'' on

the sign so people know what our business is. We are in renewal with them

for 3 more years, but the property manager said they will let us leave any

time - we don't have a space to go to yet. Also, our contract was signed with

the property management company as a sublease of their sectioned-off

space, but our lease doesn't state it's a sublease and we were never told so.

We barely found our a couple of months ago when we started having

problems with them. What are our rights with the sign?


Asked on 5/16/06, 8:43 pm

1 Answer from Attorneys

Philip Iadevaia Law Offices of Philip A. Iadevaia

Re: Commercial tenant having problem with landlord about sign

Is there a law that says you can't put ''tattoo'' on a sign? If you are under contract and the sign was existing at the time of the contract, your landlord cannot do much to alter your sign during the term of the lease. I do not quite understand the rest of your facts.

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Answered on 5/17/06, 11:31 am


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