At the fall IBO Conference, Josh Feferman, owner of Primary Media, was on Billboard Insider’s panel along with his attorney Chris Rothfelder. They shared a story about a landlord dispute that took up the morning, the day of the panel.  Insider was glad they returned in time to share.

Josh Feferman on learning that he needed a quality out of home attorney.

If you haven’t had this problem you will.  That is problems with landowners. You make a deal with a landowner and when the property changes hands the new owner wants to re-trade the deal. I had this type of situation and the property owner took me to court. I had the wrong attorney and the property owner ended up owning the sign.

Since then, one of the best decisions I have made was to find a good attorney.

Chris Rothfelder of Rothfelder & Falick on his legal practice.

My practice deals with everything billboard related including M&A, permit disputes, landlord/tenant disputes, first amendment issues and condemnations.

When he typically meets his clients. 

I get calls probably once a month from somebody who tells me that they’re interested in entering the Billboard industry.  They know a great location they want to build a billboard there that’s going to be fantastic and we talked for about half an hour and I get off the phone and and then I go to Richard’s office and I tell him, yeah you and everybody else wants to get into the Billboard industry. There’s a barrier to entry but we’ve helped a lot of people start businesses and then we’ve got together with clients who were on the tail end they want to sell their businesses and so we’ve seen them from start to finish.

It helps to know somebody that knows the industry. Knows what’s important to have in a lease agreement if you’re faced with a landlord tenant dispute.  Somebody that’s familiar with what may be some nuances if your billboards are being taken because of condemnation. Whether it’s me or another attorneys that works on behalf  of billboard companies across the country, hire somebody that knows the industry and knows your business.

Josh Feferman on a current legal dispute over the validity of a lease

I had a sign that we developed in 2018 and built and had success with. The property changed hands and the new owner said, I don’t like this deal, in fact I want the sign gone, so  take it out of the ground.  We ended up taking her to court after she had climbed up on the sign and stripped the sign of our vinyls and the ratchets and the rods.

She wouldn’t cash my checks so she thought that we cancelled the lease. I actually brought a check to court and gave it to her and she took it.  When she saw it was a check for me she threw it back at me and the judge said what are you doing?  We won the case and we  didn’t have any problems for a few years.

Then a month ago I got a call from some of my installers. We went to change an ad  on the sign and the landowner wouldn’t allow us to come on the site.  They said we don’t have a lease, we owe them money, we abandoned the sign.  My installers went back later in the day and the vinyl and ratchets and rods had disappeared again.

Chris Rothfelder on helping in a sign dispute

In this situation what we typically do is we send a demand letter and we give the landowner a short fuse, week or so, to respect the rights of the lease and give the Billboard owner the opportunity to come on the property and change the copy.   We did that and instead of letting Josh’s employees on the property, the landowner went in the opposite direction and took the vinyl and ratchets and rods off of the sign. Josh was concerned about losing a client and ad revenue.  But more importantly if you’ve got people that don’t know how to climb billboards climbing on the billboard without the proper safety equipment, they can fall down.  That’s a mistake you only make once.

So we filed a lawsuit the judge entered the temporary restraining order that I served on the land owner.  She did not respond so, this morning we traveled 30 minutes west of here for a hearing on what’s called an application for a temporary injunction. What that means is that the judge is going to order that the status quo stay in place until there is a trial. So in this case that means the land owner has never had the right to climb up on the billboard and tear the vinyl off. Josh has had a lease in place for the last 20 years to send people on the property, to maintain the sign and to change the copy.

To receive a free morning newsletter with each day’s Billboard insider articles email info@billboardinsider.com with the word “Subscribe” in the title.  Our newsletter is free and we don’t sell our subscriber list.

Paid Advertisement