We use cookies to provide you with a better experience. By continuing to browse the site you are agreeing to our use of cookies in accordance with our Cookie Policy.
A smaller tenant that's negotiating a lease for space in your shopping center may want to negotiate a cotenancy clause that requires you to rent to a “national retailer.” You may be willing to include such a clause, especially if you're already negotiating a lease with a specific national tenant. But if that deal falls through and you end up renting to a tenant that's well known, but operates in only one region of the country, your smaller tenant...
Nowadays, many restaurant tenants ask to use common areas next to their space as a patio area, where they can place tables and chairs, and serve food. These patio areas are cropping up all over—even in shopping centers. But if you allow the restaurant tenant to use part of your common areas as a patio area, make sure that your lease properly protects you. Otherwise, you could have trouble down the line. For example, you could end up in a dispute with the tenant if...
If you're like many owners of shopping centers or office building complexes, you're eager to find new ways to generate income. One solution may be to add a food court—that is, a special area dedicated to small restaurant tenants selling a diverse selection of carry-out or ready-to-eat food customers can consume in a common seating area. At shopping centers, a food court not only can generate additional income for you, but can help extend the length of shop...
Problems can arise when a restaurant tenant draws so many customers that long lines—often referred to as “queues”—form, or crowds gather in the common areas near the restaurant. Someone could get hurt if a queue or crowd becomes disorderly or unruly, and, as the owner, you could be liable. To avoid a lawsuit, negotiate in the lease that the tenant must maintain tight control over its customers, and carve out your right to enforce additional contr...
An attorneys' fees clause in a commercial real estate lease defines who will pay the legal fees for a dispute between the tenant and owner. It is critical to draft an attorneys' fees clause in your retail or office building lease that makes the tenant responsible for any legal fees arising from its potential default and relieves you from paying for the cost of a lawyer to help you resolve your own issues with it that may arise.
Although an owner should rightfully consider its building to be its own, once it signs a lease with a tenant, that tenant has a right to exclusive possession of its space. To ensure that an owner has access to the space after it has given up these possessory rights, the owner should add a provision covering who has what access rights to the leased space.
Most commercial property leases don't contain a provision specifying whether a copy or an electronic signature on the document is as valid as an original signature. In the absence of such a clause, the presumption is that only the original signature of the owner or tenant is binding. But more often than not, commercial property owners and tenants close transactions electronically via PDF or email, which currently predominate, or fax, which already is outdated, says ...
When looking to cut costs, one of the first things that tenants try to trim are their operating costs. If a tenant believes that it has overpaid for its share of the building's operating expenses, a lease audit is inevitable for you. Your first step in preparing for audits should be at the lease negotiations stage. Insist on lease provisions that limit your tenant's right to inspect your books and records so that the tenant doesn't have free reign over the p...
The sluggish commercial real estate industry is affecting both owners trying to keep up with mortgage payments and tenants who are in serious financial trouble—or even in risk of default. In this recession, it is more important than ever to spot struggling tenants in your shopping center or office building early on. Effectively dealing with a troubled tenant so that its financial problem won't hurt you doesn't have to be difficult. Follow our steps to pain...
Over the course of the past 15 years, wireless communication has changed from a novelty to a necessity for everyday life. The rapid growth has given rise to the need for wireless carriers to install and operate a greater number of cell tower sites in greater concentrations and over larger expanses of area. If you are approached by a wireless carrier about leasing part of your property—most likely, your rooftop—to be used as a cell tower site, make sure you t...
RSS