It's a bit depressing to see the greed-by-framing here. I feel like the banks are playing musical chairs rather than trying to operate sustainably. It seems like a more efficient approach — one that is not as economically destructive to GDP
after the pandemic — would be:
1. Retailer notifies their lease holders that a given location is impacted by public health closures, reducing revenues for products originating from that location from (100% of $X) to (y% of $X), and warns the leaseholder that the retailer may be forced to file bankruptcy if easement is not granted, reducing rent paid to (0% of $X).
2. Leaseholder notifies their mortgage holder of this, and warns the mortgage holder that the leaseholder may be forced to file bankruptcy if easement is not granted, reducing mortgage paid to (0% of $X).
3. Mortgage holder notifies the property tax authorities of this, and warns those authorities that the lendor may be forced to file bankruptcy if easement is not granted, reducing property tax paid to (0% of $X).
4. Property tax authority grants a public health easement to the mortgage holder, conditional on the same easement being granted to the leaseholder.
5. Mortgage holder grants a public health easement to the lease holder, conditional on the same easement being granted to the retailer.
6. Lease holder grants a public health easement to the retailer.
If anyone refuses to grant the easement, they get nothing anyways, because anyone in the stack can just give up and file for bankruptcy as a last resort — and that's where we're at today. It feels like a shell game because they're all trying to extract the maximum amount of money before bankruptcy, while withholding it until they themselves can file bankruptcy. It's such a shame they can't work together to get everyone that's owed a dollar to agree to just suspend their demands for their dollar until this is over. They're not getting their dollar either way, but if they'd rather have their tenants breaking leases left and right, so be it.