(After stating the foregoing facts.) The trial court seems to have directed the verdict on the theory thаt the lease involved in this case is but a continuation of the old rent contract, and that .the plaintiffs by their long course of dealing with the defendant and in accepting the rent regularly one, two or thrеe days late, were estopped to insist on prompt payment of the rent, and further on the thеory that the provision of paragraph 8 of the lease contract regarding three days’ written notice provided the only means whereby the landlords could terminate the lease or repossess the premises for a default or breach of the lease provisions by the defendant, аnd that the *444 evidence and stipulations show that the plaintiffs did not follow this provision, and that therefore the defendant did not have proper notice before being dispossessed.
While lease сontracts, like other contracts, where the construction is doubtful, must be construed against the party drawing and executing them (Code, § 20-704 (5)), nevertheless,' a contract should not be torn apart and construed in pieces, but the court should look to the entire instrument and so construe it as to reconсile its different parts and reject a construction which leads to contradiction, in order to ascertain the true intention of the parties, which is the real purpose of the judicial construction of contracts. Code, §§ 20-702 and 20-704 (4);
Skinner
v.
Bearden,
77
Ga. App.
325 (
It is conceded by the landlords that prior to the execution of this lease, and during a part of the continuance of the first lease, they permitted аnd acquiesced in the tenant’s habit of paying the rent one, two or three days late. Conceding that such a custom constituted a waiver by the landlords, in the absence of anything to the contrary appearing, of their right to insist upon the prompt payment of the rent on the first of each month, *445 under thе old lease, or a mutual voluntary disregard by the parties of its terms (Code, § 20-116) the tenant was entitled to rеceive reasonable notice of the landlords’ intention to insist on strict adherence to thе terms of the written contract. Whether the tenant received such reasonable 'notice undеr the circumstances was a jury question. The plaintiffs’ attorney testified that he informed the defendant оf the plaintiffs’ intention to insist upon the payment of the rent promptly upon the first day of the month. The defendant testified that he “did not recall” the plaintiffs’ counsel making such statement. If plaintiffs’ counsel did, it was enough to charge the defendant with notice of the landlords’ intention to assert their rights strictly acсording to the written contract, and he cannot defend on the ground of the prior custom. This question shоuld have been submitted to the jury.
The plaintiffs being entitled to pursue statutory remedies in dispossessing the tenаnt, they had the right to refuse to accept the tender of the rent if it was not made in time and in acсordance with the terms of the lease, or with the terms acquiesced in by the plaintiffs by custom. The plаintiffs alleged, and the stipulations showed, a demand for possession by the landlords and a refusal to dеliver possession by the tenant. The only question raised was whether under the terms of the contract аnd the action of the parties the rent was in fact due and unpaid or properly refused by the lаndlords when tendered late, or whether such 'tender was in fact in time. Under the facts appearing this was at least a’ jury question, and the trial court erred in directing the verdict for the defendant, and in overruling thе plaintiffs’ motion for a new trial complaining of that ruling, and the Appellate Division erred in thereafter affirming that order of the trial judge.
Judgment reversed.