Commercial Real Estate Leasing
So often landlords and tenants find themselves looking for guidance because an unpleasant surprise has cropped up during the course of a lease. In most every case, such surprises are the result of having signed a poorly understood or poorly constructed lease agreement.
For example, less sophisticated tenants might not know the technical lingo of the landlord’s “Standard Form Lease.” They trust that it states the basics they need to know. Thus, they will sign the lease without always knowing what it is they are signing. By the same token, inexperienced Landlords will often embrace the use of a lease agreement without really understanding the terms and conditions the agreement will impose on them.
A lease is much like a partnership agreement in that it lays down the parameters of a business relationship. When everything goes well, the signed lease will help both parties involved rather than become a problem. But the true test occurs when there are hiccups in the lease understanding. If the lease has not been carefully drafted, a hiccup can become a major problem for one or the other of the parties.
Tenants often lose sight of the fact that the “Standard Form Lease” represents the landlord’s wish list. Keep this in mind when signing a lease agreement. It is a bit like insurance: The insurance company bets everything will go in their favor and they will never have to pay out. A lease can be similar. The standard lease is the landlord’s way of betting you will sign and all will go in his direction. But, if you know what you are looking at, changing a lease agreement to shift the odds a bit more in your favor, is almost always a necessity. In such a case, the landlord should know what these changes are and how they can affect him.
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