Enforcing a Commercial Lease Against a Guarantor

Landlords cannot sue a guarantor in a Summary Proceeding because there is “no relationship of landlord and tenant … [where guarantor] was not a primary or joint obligor but assumed a secondary liability which accrued only upon default by the principal.” See Marburt Holding Corp. v. Picto Corp.,(1st Dept., 1958). Therefore, to enforce a guarantee, a landlord must pursue a Plenary Action against the guarantor following the conclusion of the Summary Proceeding. Nonetheless, landlords need not fret about the difficulty and cost incident to instituting a Plenary Action against a guarantor because landlords can proceed pursuant to CPLR §3213 and utilize the Doctrine of Collateral Estoppel in order to avoid the protracted litigation that is typical of a Plenary Action.


Read the full article by Andrew Lieb, Esq. published in The Suffolk Lawyer here.