Setting a workable commencement date for a lease to begin is one of the most important aspects of lease negotiations. But it often isn’t thought through by either owners or tenants. As with many overlooked parts of a lease deal, it takes a back seat to big ticket items like cotenancy...
Your shopping center leases probably require each tenant to pay its share of the center’s fire insurance, liability insurance, and other kinds of insurance. However, if you want to pass through your insurance costs to your tenants as a separate component of common area maintenance (CAM)...
Nonpayment of rent is the most common breach of a tenant’s lease—and can be a major signal that trouble is on the horizon. That trouble could come in many forms: A tenant becomes bankrupt or has financial issues, it withholds its rent because of a perceived problem that you’ll...
In a perfect commercial real estate world, shopping center and retail leases wouldn’t be subject to variables that could negatively affect your profitability. In reality, inflation—which is impossible to predict with complete certainty—can affect your bottom line unless you and...
Special considerations need to be addressed when a prospective tenant is not a U.S. business or individual. These considerations are geared to ensuring that the tenant and the guarantor, if any, have sufficient assets within the U.S., and that all...
While the terms of commercial leases will vary to some degree depending on the owners, tenants, and types of businesses involved, most of the same items are on the agenda for negotiations. Renewal or expansion options, common area maintenance exclusions, use clauses, and assignment and...
The right to be the only tenant in a shopping center or mall that sells a certain type of product or operates a certain type of business is highly valuable—and, therefore, very strategically negotiated. This right, which is given to the tenant in the exclusive use clause of its lease, can...
So they can enforce the lease terms they’ve negotiated with their tenants, office building and shopping center owners build remedies into their agreements. But even though an owner’s remedies can redress many situations, it still behooves you to give your tenant a strong incentive to...
It’s not uncommon for tenants to plan to spend more than you’ve agreed to pay for a tenant improvement allowance (TIA). Owners have a dual goal when providing a TIA: It entices tenants to lease the space and, by being updated, the space is more valuable overall. But generally it...
Operating expenses for an office building or retail property have the potential to make or break an owner’s or tenant’s budget. So it’s not surprising that they’re also a major point during lease negotiations. Your goal should be to pass through in the lease as many...
The initially slow-growing movement towards environmental sustainability in past years has become a full-blown way of life for many people, chief among them business owners. In fact, some retail tenants have either staked their business model on being “green”...
Shopping centers often have one or more parking areas available for tenants’ customers and employees. Without adequate parking at the property where they rent space, stores and offices couldn’t survive—and owners would lose them quickly. Providing parking seems as though it...
