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zumapooh
Nov 17, 2008, 09:46 AM
My commercial landlord verbally agreed about 5 months ago not to require a monthly rental payment from the LLC, which she and I are 50% each members, if I would not receive monthly salary for managing the LLC. The rent and salary were equal. She owns the property solely. Would this verbal agreement make the original written lease for 10 yrs null and void? I've been renting for 5 years. She keeps coming in and threatening to close it down and one time she even advertised the business for sale and was showing it without my knowledge or approval. She couldn't sell it anyway without my approval since we are both 50% members. She was to be a silent partner not even stay in the area. She is always hanging around interrupting the flow of business. I would like to lease another location and relocate the business since her rent is very high and get out from under her property.

Any advice would be appreciated.

Thank you!

rockinmommy
Nov 17, 2008, 11:55 AM
Well, verbal agreements ARE legally binding, but there has to be "assent" (AGREEMENT). So if one of you were to take the other to court, and you both show up and tell the judge what you agreed to and the stories match, he/she would rule to uphold that. If you went in and have conflicting stories about the verbal agreement then the judge would either take one side or the other - or somewhere in between (whatever they were convinced of), or they'd be likely to "void" the whole thing and just go back to whatever written agreements you had in place prior to the verbal agreement.

So, will she say, "no, that's not what I agreed to." Or will she say, "yes, I agreed to that, but then I changed my mind."??

Fr_Chuck
Nov 17, 2008, 12:19 PM
you have a verbal contract to accept rental value instead of money.
This is separate from the lease.

Time to put it all in writing, start getting a check for the work you do, and pay a check for the rent.

Really that is how it should be done anyway, since you still have to report the rental value as income on a 1099 and show the money being paid as rent for tax purposes.