Commercial leases
How we approach a commercial lease renewal
What we read first, what we ask you, and the order we negotiate in. Written from a typical matter with the details changed.
General information
This is a sample note for a fictional firm. It describes a way of working, not a result. Every lease is different; take advice on yours.
- The situation
- A café's ten-year lease ends in eight months. The landlord has sent proposed terms for a new one.
- What the owner wanted
- To stay, at a rent she could plan around, without taking on the cost of the building's roof.
- Our part
- Read the old lease and the proposal, explain the choices, then negotiate the main terms.
- Fee
- Fixed, agreed in writing before we started.
1. Read the lease you already have
Before we look at anything new, we read the current lease end to end. Three things decide most renewals: whether the tenant has a right to renew at all, what the lease says about repair, and whether there is a break clause anyone has forgotten about.
- Right to renew: whether the law gives the tenant a right to a new lease, or the old one excluded it.
- Repair: whether the tenant is responsible for the whole building or only the inside of the unit.
- Dates and notices: what has to be served, by whom, and by when.
2. Put the proposal next to it
Landlords' proposals often look like the old lease with a new rent. They rarely are. We list every change, however small, in a table: old term, new term, what it means for you. Repair, service charges and break clauses are where the money usually moves.
3. Agree what matters most to you
Then we ask questions, not the other way round. How long do you want to stay? Could you move if you had to? Which costs would hurt most? The answers decide what we push for and what we're willing to give.
Most of the value in a renewal is decided before anyone negotiates: in knowing which two or three terms you actually care about.
4. Negotiate the main terms first
We agree the headline terms (length, rent, rent review, break, repair) in a short heads-of-terms document before the landlord's solicitor drafts the lease. It is much easier to change a line in a summary than a clause in a fifty-page draft.
5. Then check the lease itself
When the draft arrives, we check it against the agreed terms and the old lease, and send you a short report: what matches, what doesn't, and what we've already asked to change.
What we don't promise
We can't promise a rent, a length or that a landlord will agree. What we can promise is that you'll know your options and the cost of each step before you take it.