I signed a five year lease April 08. On August 27th 2008, my neighbors building caught fire. The fire took my building as well. Both my neighbor and I have the same land lord. I had insurance, as required by law, my neighbor did not. Sadly, he "forgot" to renew his policy and the landlord never asked for the renewal papers. The damage the fire caused to both buildings is an est. $1 million. The day of the fire we expressed our concern that our business MUST be back and operating by thanksgiving, in time for the holiday season. He promised that he could do that and that timeframe wouldn't be a problem. It is now almost 4 months later and the building doesn't even have building permits yet. As we speak they are still demo'ing all of the burnt roof. We have requested our large deposit back so my family can restart our business elsewhere. We can not wait anylonger and are losing our customers to competition. The landlord is refusing to return our deposit and saying that we signed a lease and that lease is still in effect? The building will not be completed until approx. April '09. Our question is when is a lease void? And how can we still have a lease when he doesn't have a building? What are our rights? How do we get our large deposit back?
Thank you

What does your lease say about if it is not usable

I think your lease is void at this point, there is no useable space to operate. You are not paying rent are you? Follow Fr_Chucks lead and carefully review your lease. File a small claims suit for your deposit plus damages.

Read your lease carefully. Most commercial leases have clauses that address this issue. The commercial lease form I use has a clause stating that if the building is damaged by fire and is not repaired and open for business within 6 months then the tenant has the right to terminate the lease. If there is nothing about casualty in your lease then you should speak to a real estate attorney about your options.