213 West 23rd v Crunch Holdings LLC

Lease/guaranty drafters and commercial guarantors, take note: a guarantor is not bound by a lease’s surrender requirements unless those requirements are expressly incorporated into the guaranty.

Guarantors: when invoking a good guy guaranty, pay close attention to the wording. Are you required to obtain the landlord’s written consent for the surrender to be effective? That depends.

You are obligated when the guaranty says something like:

“surrender in broom-clean condition and as otherwise required by this lease.”

That last clause is sneaky. It pulls the entire lease’s surrender conditions into the guaranty, even if they're not stated outright. Know what you’re signing.