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If you’ve signed a lease with a tenant that contains a “subrogation” clause, you might think that you’re off the hook for damage caused in the space. That’s because most subrogation clauses include a waiver from the tenant stating that the owner isn’t liable for damage. But that’s not always the case. For example, a Louisiana court took into account the fact that the owner’s handling of a plumbing problem in the space it r...

A big part of successfully running a shopping center is ensuring the safety of tenants, their employees, your employees, and customers. With security cameras or a security guard and alarms, you might think that you have the safety aspect of your operations locked down. But here’s something that could be overlooked and that can come back to burn you, figuratively and literally: inadequate or no insurance for tenants whose businesses create waste that’s danger...

Unfortunately, tenant bankruptcies are something you’ll probably have to face if you own an office building or shopping center long enough. You need to take every step possible to protect yourself. The good news for shopping center owners is that bankruptcy laws give you more assignment protection than they give to owners of other types of properties. That is, you’re protected from an assignment that disrupts the tenant mix at your center. You can employ two...

Q: In my lease with a new tenant at my shopping center, I agreed to waive rent payments until I completed tenant improvements that had been negotiated. But I’m having financial difficulties and would like to start charging the tenant rent to compensate. If the tenant balks at this, what are my odds of prevailing if it becomes a legal battle?

In recent years, filling space at shopping centers with smaller, non-traditional tenants rather than large national stores (many of which are suffering financially) has been a successful strategy for landlords. If you’re taking advantage of this rapidly growing trend, you should be aware that, while in the short term it can boost profits, it carries a substantial amount of risk in the long term. That’s because many smaller tenants often have a limited—...

Q: I’ve had some minor but time-consuming lease issues with a tenant at my shopping center, but its store is important to the overall center’s plan. It doesn’t have a renewal option but I am considering renewing its lease nonetheless. Is there any way to protect myself when doing this?

Occasionally, a tenant that is displeased with something at the space it leases will ask a court for declaratory relief. This is a judgment from a court declaring something about the lease provisions, such as who is responsible for a certain thing if the tenant and owner are disputing responsibility. But you can avoid a trip to court in some cases by negotiating with the tenant for it to waive its right to ask a court for declaratory relief on one or more lease terms.

On June 6, Commercial Lease Law Insider was recognized in the Best Business Newsletter category of awards presented by the Specialized Information Publisher’s Association (SIPA) at its annual conference in Washington, D.C. The judges based their decisions on 2017 issues in which editor Elizabeth Purcell explained:

Rent abatement is frequently mentioned when discussing commercial leases. But it’s not as simple as including a clause that spells out the circumstances under which tenants are entitled to withhold rent. There are many variables and, if you don’t draft rent abatement provisions carefully, you could overlook specific items that can affect you later if the tenant exercises its right.

Most shopping center and strip mall owners are always looking for ways to bring in more income. If you’re negotiating leases with some prospective tenants to fill vacant space and they’ll be paying percentage rent and base rent, there are often-overlooked ways to boost your rent revenues that you should try to put in the lease.