Modifying a Lease Should landlord agree to modify a lease?

[Mirta]

General rule of partnerships, of which I once was at Deloitte-Touche. One partner can legally bind the partnership.

Remember Andersen and Enron?

Legally you're free to contract on behalf of your partnership, unless your agreement inhibits or specifically prohibits you otherwise.

I agree, it can cause dissension among your partners.

I wrote it as a question, and you wrote it as an answer.

 

[zddoodah]

Alright. Let say, I modify a lease, lower the rental, sign it on behalf of the partnership, and it becomes valid. Tenant pays the new lower rental as per the Amendment and some partners are very unhappy. So there is a happy tenant on one side, and several very unhappy general partners, who cannot stop expressing their dissent over my action, on the other side.
There is nothing in the partnership agreement about this scenario.
What are the possible consequences besides partners' disapproval?

So...you're the landlord? Or, apparently, the landlord is a general partnership of which you are a partner? Always fun to get new information this deep into a thread....

Anyway, generally speaking the action of any partner will bind a general partnership. That being said, and unless the lease says otherwise, the hypothetical lease modification you mentioned would be valid. Your partners could not undo the modification, but they could seek to dissolve the partnership.

 

[Mirta]

So...you're the landlord? Or, apparently, the landlord is a general partnership of which you are a partner? Always fun to get new information this deep into a thread....

Anyway, generally speaking the action of any partner will bind a general partnership. That being said, and unless the lease says otherwise, the hypothetical lease modification you mentioned would be valid. Your partners could not undo the modification, but they could seek to dissolve the partnership.

Hypothetically partners could ask to dissolve the partnership, but that is not going to happen. All general partners have a lot to lose and nothing to gain if the partnership dissolves.