The applicant tenant brought an application under Rule 14.05(3)(d) for the interpretation of a commercial lease to determine whether the 'Net Rentable Area' included two mezzanines.
The respondent landlord argued that the mezzanines should be included based on an architect's certificate and expert evidence of standard commercial practice.
The court held that the plain and grammatical meaning of the lease defined a shell and did not contemplate adding the mezzanine floor area to the calculation.
The court rejected the expert evidence as an attempt to rewrite the contract and found the architect's certificate failed to follow the lease's methodology.
