Dear Lawyers,
We have a shop in Telangana state where the shop tenant has been paying rents (inconsistently) for the past 4 years with pending rent balance. Since the rental agreement expired on December 1, 2023, we requested the shop tenant to clear the pending rent dues for the year 2022 and 2023. After finally receiving all the dues, we kindly requested the shop tenant to vacate the shop as the new agreement was not made.
We gave our first verbal friendly informal request to the shop tenant on December 29, 2023. The shop tenant requested Rs 90,000 as an amount he would take to vacate which included Rs50,000 security deposit and Rs 40,000 as courtesy amount since he has to pay towards acquiring the future shop. We agreed and asked the shop tenant for the time he would need to vacate and he replied January 15, 2024 to January 20, 2024. We agreed and on January 8, 2024, we went to the shop to gently remind the tenant on vacating the property by January 20, 2024. The shop tenant got influenced by his workers and said, if you give Rs 4,00,000, then they will vacate. We asked for proof for Rs 4,00,000 and they replied that they gave Rs 4,00,000 to our previous tenant and since the previous tenant is no longer with us, now they want the money from us, the owner. We do not have any documentation of receiving the money so we said we cannot give Rs 4,00,000 unless there is a legal proof that we took your money. The shop tenant has not paid the rent for January 2024 and February 2024.
Now the shop tenant has filed an INJUNCTION case at the civil court in Hyderabad. What are our options? How can we tackle this silly situation where we have been patient and respectful and requested the shop tenant to vacate the shop after the lease expiry.
One thing we did was that we took the shop tenant's signature on a note where he agreed to vacate the shop by January 20, 2024. On January 21, 2024, we pasted a notice on the store that please clear the current month's dues ALONG with the note that had the signature of the shop tenant who agreed to vacate by January 20, 2024. And we put our locks on the shop on January 21, 2024 just to let the shop tenant know that their agreed time has lapsed. Now the tenant broke the lock on the same day and regained access to the shop.
The tenant has gone to the court for INJUNCTION when we didn't want the matter to escalate as there has been no need for it since there was a mutual agreement between the shop tenant and us with no new rental agreement and his acceptance to vacate by January 20, 2024. We have made plenty of calls to meet with the shop tenant who didn't answer us and chose the INJUNCTION way. They have said that they will not only get Rs 4,00,000 but Rs 20,00,000 from us when we have been gentle in our approach and applied an informal approach to inform the shop tenant of the mutually agreed terms.
What do you suggest?
