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Some office building or mall owners put out “wet floor” signs during rainy or snowy weather to warn customers about slippery conditions that could quickly develop on the floors of the property. In just a few minutes, water can collect, creating a hazard. It’s important to be cognizant of potential areas for liability, but make sure to consult your attorney about what precautions you should take as far as these types of warnings are concerned.
Making a profit from tenants at your shopping center or mall depends on many factors—one of which is the key percentage rent arrangement. Percentage rent allows you to collect not only base rent, but also a percentage of the tenant’s gross sales done at the space it leases from you. But percentage rent doesn’t exist in a vacuum. It can be diminished by variables like the tenant’s success—not just with you, but wherever else it is doing busi...
Many commercial properties have more than one level, which will mean that there is at least one set of stairs. You may be wondering if you could include the stairs leading to, say, the dance studio in the square footage, and whether it’s customary, or even legal, to include stairs leading to a second-story office or retail property when calculating the square feet to be leased. What if the stairs are the only access to the leased area?
If you own a mixed-use building that has retail stores on the ground floor and residential units on the floors above, with the ground floor specifically zoned for retail use, be aware of additional lease considerations. Namely, you’ll need to factor in the potential for zoning changes in your leases.
If you own a shopping center or office building and have financial difficulties, you may be dealing with one, or even several, liens filed against the property. A savvy tenant knows that if it doesn’t have priority if you become bankrupt, it could be dramatically affected, up to and including having to move out of its space. That’s why it might demand that you agree to sign a “memorandum of lease” when you sign the lease with it.
The standard lease form that you use might require a tenant to add you to its commercial general liability (CGL) policy as an “additional named insured.” You might think that this additional named insured status gives you the same rights as the tenant under its CGL policy, and that’s why you have been operating this way, but there can be disadvantages.
Before retaining a real estate attorney for a new deal, don’t spend time and money disclosing the deal’s details to her before you are sure that no conflict of interest exists that could prevent her from fairly representing your interests. This applies whether the attorney is new to you or one with whom you have worked in the past.
Owners who lease space to large national retail tenants know that their demands can be hard to resist. Use of the space is the number one concern for these tenants. Often, they ask for flexibility in their use of the space that puts owners at a disadvantage. A lease that allows a tenant to use the space for a wide variety of uses—such as “for any lawful purpose” or “any lawful retail purpose”—can be troublesome.
While owning a shopping center or office building can be very profitable, it also exposes landlords to liability for a variety of things, such as injuries. You can’t stop third parties from suing you if they’re injured after hours by someone in your building or center—but there is good news: You can protect yourself financially in other ways. For example, make a tenant pay for the actions of its visitors, agents, employees, and subtenants.
Q: I defaulted on a lease for space at a small shopping center. The landlord is claiming that damages from the default reach into the hundreds of thousands of dollars. I disagree and have calculated damages that are significantly lower. The landlord and its bookkeeper are planning to testify at trial regarding the losses it suffered. Will the court automatically agree that these charges are correct?