Commercial leases offer materially fewer automatic legal protections than residential leases. The Residential Tenancies Act and the consumer-protection presumptions it carries do not apply; the lease itself, together with the more limited Commercial Tenancies Act, governs almost all of the relationship. A term that would be unenforceable in a residential lease is generally enforceable in a commercial lease, and the time to address such a term is before signature, not after.
Yes. A material portion of the firm's commercial-lease practice consists of marking up landlord forms and negotiating against the landlord's counsel, particularly on additional rent, assignment-and-subletting, personal guarantees, maintenance-and-repair allocation, and renewal-option mechanics. Most landlord forms are drafted with negotiation in mind, and a tenant who does not negotiate is generally accepting more risk than the landlord expected to obtain.
Basic rent is the fixed amount payable for the leased premises. Additional rent is everything else the lease defines as additional rent, most commonly the tenant's proportionate share of property taxes, building maintenance and operating costs, and insurance (often abbreviated TMI or CAM), together with management fees and a gross-up where the building is not fully tenanted. The total occupancy cost, basic rent plus additional rent, is generally substantially higher than basic rent alone, and the additional rent definition is one of the most leveraged points in any net-lease document.
A standard tenant-side lease review and markup is generally returned within several business days of receipt of the lease, depending on length and complexity. Negotiation against the landlord then runs on the landlord's response cycle. Where the lease is on the critical path of a transaction with a fixed closing date, we calibrate scope and pace to that date and confirm the timeline at the outset of the engagement.
Both. The firm's commercial-leasing practice is split between tenant-side mandates (startups, franchises, retail and food-service operators, professional and medical tenants, and growing corporations) and landlord-side mandates, including owner-managed building owners and family office real estate holdings. The work in either direction is informed by what we see across the table on the other side.
In a gross lease, the tenant pays a single rent, and the landlord covers operating costs, taxes, and insurance. In a net lease, the tenant pays base rent plus one or more of those costs. A triple net (NNN) lease passes through all three taxes, maintenance, and insurance to the tenant on top of the base rent.
Additional rent, sometimes called TMI for taxes, maintenance, and insurance, is the tenant's share of the landlord's operating costs for the building, in addition to base rent. It can include real estate taxes, common area maintenance, insurance, utilities, and management fees. TMI is often a significant portion of total monthly rent and varies between buildings.
Most commercial leases require landlord consent before a tenant can assign or sublet the premises. Landlords usually have broad discretion to withhold consent unless the lease specifically requires consent to be reasonable. We negotiate assignment and sublet clauses so that consent cannot be unreasonably withheld and so the tenant can exit or restructure the lease if needed.
At expiry, the tenant must vacate and return the premises in the condition required by the lease. If the lease contains a renewal option, the tenant can usually extend on stated terms by giving notice within a specified window. Continuing to occupy without a renewal creates an overholding tenancy, often at double the rent and on month-to-month terms.
