Code of the District of Columbia

§ 42–3229. Surrender for new lease good without surrender of underleases; underleases continue unaffected; all rights and remedies to continue.

In case any lease shall be duly surrendered, in order to be renewed, and a new lease made and executed by the chief landlord or landlords, the same new lease shall, without a surrender of all the underleases, be as good and valid, to all intents and purposes, as if all the underleases derived thereout had been likewise surrendered at or before the taking of such new lease; and all and every person and persons in whom any estate for life or lives, or for years, shall, from time to time, be vested by virtue of such new lease, and his, her, and their executors and administrators, shall be entitled to the rents, covenants, and duties, and have like remedy for recovery thereof, and the underlessees shall hold and enjoy the messuages, lands, and tenements, in the respective underleases, comprised, as if the original leases, out of which the respective underleases are derived, had been still kept on foot and continued, and the chief landlord and landlords shall have, and be entitled to, such and the same remedy, by distress or entry in and upon the messuages, lands, tenements, and hereditaments comprised in any such underlease, for the rents and duties reserved by such new lease, so far as the same exceed not the rents and duties reserved in the lease, out of which such underlease was derived, as they would have had in case such former lease had been still continued, or as they would have had, in case the respective underleases had been renewed under such new principal lease.