Q A government agency has approached me about leasing space in my office building. I am considering the idea, but I've heard that government agency tenants have more specific requirements than typical commercial property tenants. What criteria and...
Evicting a struggling tenant is never easy. Handling an eviction poorly may create a contentious situation for you and your property manager, or even result in a lawsuit for wrongful eviction. In this economy, it is critical to take action as soon as a tenant sends a partial rent payment or...
If the lease with your strip mall or shopping center tenant doesn't include provisions allowing you to control its right to choose and change its trade name, you are giving it the power to cause serious problems. At the very least, a tenant's illegal or unsuitable use of a trade name may...
A tenant that moves out before the lease expires may create costly problems for you—namely, finding a replacement tenant. Despite the breach—and the aggravation and cost it has caused for you—the tenant may try to recover its security deposit. That is what happened to a New...
State and local governments in Arizona, Connecticut, and California are compensating for budget shortfalls by selling their office high-rises, prisons, and even capitol buildings. Arizona recently invited investors to buy bonds secured by several landmark state government buildings, while...
Office tenants that want the option of subletting unused individual offices in, or portions of, the office suite they rent often negotiate professional affiliate sublease clauses. Such a clause gives an office tenant the right to sublet to other professional tenants of the same or a similar type...
Most commercial leases contain an indemnification clause specifying whether and for what amount of money a tenant and owner must indemnify one another when they are sued. A lease may also include an insurance procurement clause that requires the owner and tenant to insure specific areas of the...
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...
Resist the temptation to allow a good tenant to stay after the lease expires, without signing a new one. It will become a “tenant-at-will,” giving it a potentially powerful status—even without a lease. A shopping center owner in Georgia was faced with this situation when a...
Although the purchases were independent of one another and don't necessarily signal a trend, two nonprofit groups, Goodwill Industries of Southern Arizona and the American Red Cross Arizona Blood Services, recently acquired Tucson, Ariz., commercial property in transactions that their...
You must be aware of the presence of hazardous materials on your commercial property so that you can not only minimize the risks they pose, but also use lease provisions that shift liability for them to your tenant. Before drafting provisions that specify these things, find out exactly what...
There is a common misconception among commercial property owners that arbitration is preferable to litigation, and they often allow their standard lease forms to provide that mandatory binding arbitration, rather than a court, will be used to resolve disputes. Arbitration may work well in...
