USPS entered into a 20 year lease with four renewal options and a final purchase option. It exercised the renewals and then the purchase option. When the lessors refused to convey title, USPS sued for specific performance. This decision affirms the summary judgment in USPS’s favor. USPS was required to give the lessors written notice of its exercise of the renewals and purchase option. It did so adequately, if not perfectly, notifying at least one lessor/owner each time it renewed, even if its notices got the names of the lessor/owners confused at times. Furthermore, both sides had continued to perform the lease for decades as if the renewals had occurred. The current lessor/owners could not invoke imperfections in service of renewal notices as a means of avoiding sale of the property at the below-current-market price set in the lease.
Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals (Smith, M., J.); September 9, 2016; 2016 WL 4709869