ARE YOU USING THE CORRECT COMMERCIAL OFFICE LEASE

BY RANDOLPH T. MASON, CCIM, SIOR

SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT PARTNER

LEE & ASSOCIATES COMMERCIAL REAL ESTATE SERVICES

So, you have done everything correct, you have started the process of looking for a new location well ahead of time - eighteen (18) months in advance. That amount of time would allow you to comfortably locate, select, space plan, negotiate and schedule a relocation without a gun to your head. Everything is moving smoothly and you are focused on three good alternatives and moving forward week by week with space planning, proposal discussions and negotiations while at the same time, determining the pros and cons of each individual location. The time had come when you needed to focus on one specific location in order to begin the lease preparation and negotiation process. You easily could have gone to leases on three of the properties; however, you did not want to spend good money negotiating three separate leases.
The basic letter of intent was provided to the landlord’s attorney as well as the tenant’s attorney. The landlord’s attorney drafted the lease, forwarded it to the tenant’s attorney for their review and did not copy the tenant’s broker as expeditiously as they should have. After six pages of lease comments came back from the tenant’s attorney, I determined that there was a better lease for this particular property. The landlord used a standard AIR Industrial/Commercial Gross Lease when in actuality an AIR Office Gross Lease would have been more appropriate for this transaction. It’s important for the parties to know which lease is the most appropriate for each individual transaction. Now, I agree with the landlord’s representative that while the lease they provided the three other tenants in the project were adequate (provided many changes were made in the Addendum), there was a more appropriate lease for this transaction - the one I had suggested.