Legal Question in Landlord & Tenant Law in Virginia

Re: Question regarding storage of pesticides on business premises.

If I were your tenant's attorney hired to oppose your action either to evict or to enforce unreasonable conditions upon the tenant which cannot be fairly construed from the terms of the lease itself, I would argue for my client as follows:

My client has in no way violated any of the provisions of the operative lease by storing in/upon his leased business premises some of the product which he sells. This type of storage of salable product in fact fully conforms with the lease provision which states: "The Premises shall

be used and occupied by the Tenant for general office purposes"...i.e, which must necessarily as a general principle reasonably include some storage of the product of which the business is all about.

Unless the landlord can show that in fact the storage of the tenant's saleable goods has in fact provably affected the cost of the landlord's

insurance coverage(of whatever kind)or has in fact had some other adverse effect on such coverage provable by a preponderance of the evidence, then the landlord's cause(s) of action should be prejudicely dismissed.

Re: Question regarding storage of pesticides on business premises.

The problem here is that it is subjective. Of course, you could get objective, concrete proof that the tenant has violated the provision by telling your insurance company and they might actually raise your rates or telling the fire marshal and he may complain. But that is shooting yourself in the foot. (Maybe the fire marshal part would work.) So, the problem you would face is proving that these things are true, when they haven't happened yet.

In the same way, is storing pesticide "general office purposes." Well, it doesn't sound like "general office" to me. "General office purposes" to me sounds like secretaries typing on computers, etc. But, then again, if you signed the lease specifically for a pest control company, then they could say that you agreed with everything that a pest control company includes.

I think that you may have objections to other things. You may want to consider what those objections are and maybe there is some other reason to cancel the lease.

Re: Question regarding storage of pesticides on business premises.

Spelling correction in last sentence: prejudicely should read prejudicially.