Zaimis v. Sharis

The trial court properly reformed a real estate lease after determining through parol evidence that the parties intended the rent to be $135 per week during the second lease term, rather than $135 per month as stated in the preprinted lease.

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In 1994, Nikalaos Zaimis leased commercial premises from Anita Sharis. The first paragraph of the lease provided for a five year term and an annual rent of $5,720, payable in equal weekly installments $110. Paragraph 21 of the lease provided for an option to renew with the same terms “except that the monthly rent shall be the sum of $135.00.” Zaimis noticed the discrepancy two years into the lease, but said nothing. When the first lease term expired, Zaimis took the position that the lease called for a monthly rent of $135, not the weekly rent in that amount that Sharis claimed was due. Sharis sought reformation of the lease and the trial court, after a bench trial, granted that relief. Holding that the conflict between paragraphs 1 and 21 authorized the taking of parol evidence to ascertain the intent of the parties, the trial court heard evidence and found as a fact that the parties intended the rent to be $135 per week in the second term of the lease and that the failure to change the preprinted lease form to substitute “weekly” for “monthly” was a scrivener’s error. Having ascertained the intent of the parties, the trial court reformed the contract to provide for weekly rent of $135 and entered judgment for Sharis for the arrearage. This appeal is from that judgment.

1. Zaimis contends the trial court erred in reforming the contract because a merger clause in the lease precluded the consideration of parol evidence and because the mistake was Sharis’s alone. Neither of those arguments is persuasive.

Zaimis v. Sharis

The trial court properly reformed a real estate lease after determining through parol evidence that the parties intended the rent to be $135 per week during the second lease term, rather than $135 per month as stated in the preprinted lease.

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