The tenant of business premises is not paying: notice, retention of goods and eviction from non-residential premises

The lease of non-residential premises is not governed by the same regime as the lease of a flat. Act No. 116/1990 Coll. on the lease and sublease of non-residential premises is short, leaves the parties a great deal of freedom to agree, and the Civil Code applies to everything else. For a landlord whose business tenant has stopped paying, the speed and certainty of the available steps depend above all on the content of the lease; some steps that would work with another type of lease are not permitted by law for non-residential premises.

Notice for non-payment

Where the lease is for an indefinite period, the landlord may terminate it in writing even without giving a reason, unless the lease provides otherwise (Section 10). A fixed-term lease ends on expiry of the agreed period and, before that, the landlord may terminate it by notice only on statutory grounds. Non-payment is one of them:

The landlord may terminate a fixed-term lease in writing before the period expires where […] the tenant is more than one month in arrears with payment of rent or of charges for services connected with the lease;

— Section 9(2) of Act No. 116/1990 Coll. (unofficial English translation)

The notice period is three months unless the parties have agreed otherwise, and it runs from the first day of the month following service of the notice (Section 12). A shorter period therefore has to be agreed in the lease in advance. Withdrawal from the contract for non-payment, which the Civil Code permits for other leases, is expressly excluded for non-residential premises (Section 679(3)); withdrawal is possible where the use of the premises causes or threatens to cause substantial damage to the landlord, or on grounds agreed in the lease. The notice must be in writing and must be served in a demonstrable manner. A dispute about its effectiveness often turns on whether and when the tenant received it.

The lease itself also deserves attention. It must be in writing and must state the subject and purpose of the lease, the amount and due date of the rent and the method of payment, and for a fixed-term lease also its duration; otherwise it is invalid (Section 3(3) and (4)). Where the lease is invalid, unjust enrichment is claimed instead of rent, which complicates the dispute.

A lien over the tenant’s movables

The Act on the lease of non-residential premises does not itself provide security for the rent, but the landlord can rely on the Civil Code:

To secure the rent, the landlord of immovable property has a lien over movable property which is on the leased property and belongs to the tenant or to persons living with the tenant in a common household, with the exception of property excluded from enforcement.

— Section 672(1) of Act No. 40/1964 Coll. (unofficial English translation)

This security is easily lost, however: it is enough for the tenant to remove the goods before they are inventoried by a person appointed by the court, who may also be a court enforcement officer. Where the tenant is moving out and the rent is neither paid nor secured, the landlord may retain the goods at its own risk, but must apply for an inventory within eight days, failing which it must hand them over (Section 672(2)). Retention therefore does not mean that the landlord may keep the goods or sell them. Changing the locks without an inventory and without a court decision may backfire. In practice, an agreed cash deposit, applied against the debt under the rules set out in the lease, works better, as does a guarantee from the director or the parent company where the tenant is a small limited company.

When the tenant does not leave after the lease ends

Once the lease ends, the tenant must return the premises in the condition in which it took them over, having regard to ordinary wear and tear (Section 13). If it does not, an eviction claim remains, followed after judgment by enforcement. For the period during which it uses the premises without legal title, the tenant owes the landlord compensation. With non-residential premises, the question of renewal of the lease by continued use must not be overlooked either; when the risk arises and when it does not is discussed in the question on the tenant who has not vacated the premises after the lease ended. For completeness, where a tenant who is a natural person dies, the lease terminates under Section 14(b) if the heirs do not notify the landlord within the statutory period that they are continuing the lease, and unless the lease provides otherwise.

What to agree in the lease in advance

Because much of the statute is non-mandatory, most can be gained when the lease is signed. It is worth agreeing a shorter notice period, a cash deposit with an obligation on the tenant to top it up once it has been drawn on, a contractual penalty for delay in vacating, and precise rules on service, including the address to which documents are to be sent even after the tenant has left the premises. For larger premises we also consider a bank guarantee or a third-party guarantee. The lease should also determine the condition in which the premises are to be returned, what happens to any alterations made by the tenant, and who is to draw up the handover protocol and when.

How this will work under the new Civil Code

On 1 October 2026, the National Council of the Slovak Republic approved the new Slovak Civil Code, which will take effect on 1 July 2027. It repeals Act No. 116/1990 Coll. and will govern an office, business unit or warehouse leased for business purposes as a lease of business premises. How the new rules will be reconciled with the Commercial Code in relationships between businesses will be settled definitively only by the implementing amendment. For a landlord whose tenant is not paying, the main changes are these:

• If, despite a written warning, the tenant does not pay the outstanding rent or service charges even by the due date of the next rent, the landlord will be able to withdraw from the lease. The landlord must state and describe the ground in the withdrawal. If the tenant proves payment to the landlord before then, the landlord may not withdraw.
• The grounds for notice that the Act currently lists for a fixed-term lease will disappear. A fixed-term lease will be terminable by notice only on grounds agreed by the parties or laid down by law. A lease for an indefinite period will be terminable without giving a reason, with a two-month notice period.
• The lien over the tenant’s movables will secure all monetary claims arising from the lease. When the tenant moves out, the landlord may retain the movables at its own risk; an inventory by a person appointed by the court is no longer required.
• If the tenant continues to use the premises after the lease has ended and the landlord does not call on the tenant in writing to surrender them within three months, the lease will be renewed.

The lease will not have to be in writing, and missing particulars will not render it invalid. Leases concluded by 30 June 2027 will continue to be governed by Act No. 116/1990 Coll. even after that date.

If you conclude a fixed-term lease from 1 July 2027, write the grounds for notice for both parties into the lease. Further changes are described in the question leases of business premises under the new Civil Code.

Status as of 22 October 2026: the act has been approved and was signed by the President on 20 October 2026, but has not yet been promulgated in the Collection of Laws. Until 30 June 2027, the rules described above in this article apply.

The order of steps

First a written demand stating a specific amount and a deadline, and at the same time a review of the lease: the term of the lease, the grounds for and periods of notice, the deposit and service. If the tenant does not pay, notice follows, served in a demonstrable manner, and on the tenant’s departure an inventory of the goods where the landlord has something to secure. Rent arrears are recovered by a payment order or a claim, usually alongside eviction. We tailor the procedure to your lease as part of our recovery of rent and eviction service. If you are still entering into the lease, or wish to tighten it, we will prepare it as part of our lease of non-residential premises service.