Section 45-1561

Citation: Section 45-1561
Parent Document: Habib v. Thurston, 517 A.2d 1 (1986)
Jurisdiction: DC (municipal)
Effective Date: 1986-10-30
Original Source: https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/1995493/habib-v-thurston/ ↗

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. Presumably, when a tenant prevails in a pos-sessory action under an unexpired lease, as we have here under the circumstances, see supra note 3, the tenant is still in possession under the lease and thus the payments into the registry under a protective order are properly characterized as "rent” after the right to possession is confirmed. If, however, the landlord prevails on a notice to quit, the tenant will have been in possession, after the notice expired, in the status of a holdover tenant. In that case, the landlord will be entitled not to the rent specified in the expired lease but to the reasonable value of the premises during the tenant’s continued occupancy. This, theoretically, can be more or less than the rent specified in the lease. Typically, how*14ever, such reasonable value is determined, presumptively, by the rent the tenant had been paying. Unless the parties have validly agreed otherwise in the lease, “[i]n the absence of evidence that the rental value of the leased property has increased or diminished since negotiation of the rent at the time of agreement to lease, that negotiated rental rate will determine the rate a which the holdover must pay for his [or her] continued use and occupation,” Restatement (Second) of Property, Landlord and Tenant § 14.5 comment a (1977).

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