Florida/Georgia Personal Injury & Workers Compensation

...A tenant at sufferance has merely a naked possession and no appreciable estate in the land. . . . " Section 83.04, Florida Statutes, provides that a tenant who holds over after expiration of his term without any renewal shall be construed to be a tenant at sufferance. Section 83.05, Florida Statutes, provides that upon the failure of a tenant to pay rent at the time it becomes due the lessor thereafter has the right of immediate possession and re-entry....

...giving of a minimum of "three (3) days' notice in writing, requiring the payment of such rent or the possession of the premises". This proviso in § 83.20 is an anti-forfeiture provision whereby the tenant who has been rendered one at sufferance by § 83.05 may negate his reduction to the status of a tenant at sufferance, be reinstated to his prior estate and, thus avoid a forfeiture and termination, by the making of the required payment of rent due....

...(Section 83.21, Florida Statutes), and other pertinent changes to part I, as well as judicial opinions decided during the past sixteen years construing the statutory amendments. Perhaps the most profound change occurred in 1983 with the amendment to Section 83.05, Florida Statutes, eliminating the landlord's self-help right to eviction, and authorizing the landlord to recover possession of nonresidential rental property under the following conditions: (1) if the landlord has instituted action for possession under Section 83.20, or other civil action in which the right of possession is determined; (2) if the tenant has surrendered possession of the premises; or (3) if the tenant has abandoned the premises. Section 83.05(2)(a)(b) and (c), Fla. Stat. The title to chapter 83-151, relating to the amendment to section 83.05, states that the statute specifies " alternative methods by which a landlord may recover possession of nonresidential premises; ... ." (e.s.) We construe the amended statute as requiring the landlord to file an action for possession in all circumstances except those enumerated in section 83.05(2)(b) and (c), which, if they occur, permit the landlord to reenter the premises peaceably and retake possession. The effect of the amendment to section 83.05 is to abrogate the landlord's right to obtain possession — unless he files an action for possession under section 83.20, or other civil action — in every case in which the tenant remains on the premises after having been given the notice provided in section 83.20(2). *1176 The amendments to section 83.05, in our view, represent a partial acceptance by the legislature of the recommendation made by Professor Boyer in 1968, advocating the repeal of the landlord's self-help right to eviction: Since we propose to prohibit non-consensual peaceable entries as well as forcible entries, section 83.05 must be repealed to achieve this goal....

...summarily ejected without legal process. Boyer and Grable, Reform of Landlord-Tenant Statutes' to Eliminate Self-Help in Evicting Tenants, 22 U.Miami L.Rev. 800, 803-04 (1968) (e.s.) (footnote omitted). In the case at bar the sublessor complied with section 83.05(2)(a) by filing a counterclaim for possession of the leased premises....

...3d DCA 1970), denying the tenant the right to assert affirmative defenses other than payment of rent to the landlord's action to recover possession. Although the Third District's two conflicting opinions could not be rationally distinguished before the 1983 amendment to section 83.05, they now can be. Brownlee based its decision in part upon the right given to the lessor by section 83.05, as it then existed, to enter and take possession of the premises upon the lessee's nonpayment of rent. The 1983 amendment to section 83.05, as previously observed, now requires the lessor to seek possession by legal process....

...The Millards' initial failure to plead their entitlement to or to demand attorney's fees in the distress action and their further failure to prove the fee issue at trial now prevents Millard's recovery of fees. CAMPBELL, A.C.J., and THREADGILL, J., concur. NOTES [*] Section 83.05, Florida Statutes (1983) provides: 83.05 Right of possession upon default in rent; determination of right of possession in action or surrender or abandonment of premises....

...reads in pertinent part: "Causes of action, of whatever kind, by and against the same parties in the same rights, may be joined in the same suit, except that replevin and ejectment shall not be joined together nor with other causes of action." (emphasis supplied) [5] Fla. Stat. § 83.05, F.S.A....

...Landlord and Tenant § 716, and cases cited therein. However, under the common law, non-payment of rent does not as a general rule work a forfeiture and confers no right of reentry. See: 52 C.J.S. Landlord and Tenant § 718b. In Florida, the Legislature has enacted § 83.05, Fla....

...he failure of the tenant to pay rent. Ex parte Bienville Inv. Co., 102 Fla. 524, 136 So. 328 (1931); State ex rel. Rich v. Ward, 135 Fla. 885, 185 So. 846 (1939). *319 Although equitable defenses may not be raised in an action instituted pursuant to § 83.05, Fla....

...arious building code provisions; (3) the lease was entered into for an illegal purpose and could not be enforced; (4) there was a failure of consideration for the lease; (5) there was a constructive eviction; (6) the landlord had unclean hands. [2] "§ 83.05....

DCA 1986) (“The effect of the amendment to section 83.05 is to abrogate the landlord’s right to obtain

evidence unequivocally established a violation of section 83.05, Florida Statutes (1999), the summary judgment

may have had a valid unlawful eviction claim. Section 83.05(2), Florida Statutes (2016), provides only three

tenant alleged the landlord’s actions violated section 83.05(2), Florida Statutes (2017) because it engaged

(N.H. 2006). In Florida, a 1983 amendment to section 83.05, Florida Statutes, “abrogate[d] the landlord’s