Understand every lease before you sign it. Plain English guides to clauses, deposits, renewals, and the terms that matter most.
Commercial leases run on dates, and two of the most important are the lease commencement date and the rent commencement date. They sound similar, and in many leases...
Moving into commercial space is rarely as simple as signing a lease and showing up on day one. Most tenants need time to build out the premises, install...
Free rent is one of the most valuable concessions a commercial tenant can negotiate. It means months of occupancy without paying base rent, usually at the start of...
A tenant rep broker is a commercial real estate professional who represents the tenant, and only the tenant, in a lease transaction. Unlike the listing broker, who works...
Commercial leases almost always involve brokers, and brokers have to get paid by someone. For tenants new to office, retail, or industrial space, the question of who actually...
In a base year lease, everything hinges on the base year. Your rent increases are measured against the operating expenses incurred in that single year, so the composition...
When a commercial lease sets renewal rent at fair market rent, or when a landlord quotes you a rate for new space, that number comes from somewhere. Fair...
Many commercial leases raise your rent automatically each year, and one of the most common mechanisms is a CPI escalation clause. Tied to the Consumer Price Index, this...
Not every commercial lease charges tenants for operating expense increases the same way. In a base year lease, you pay the increases above your base year. In a...
Operating expenses in a commercial lease rarely stay flat. They creep upward year after year, and tenants with no protection watch their total occupancy cost drift far above...