Chatted with a landlord near Eastern Market who made me rethink commercial leases

Ngl, I always thought commercial leases were pretty standard. But this guy who owns like 4 buildings over off Gratiot told me he's been burned twice by hidden clauses. One had a maintenance clause that basically made him pay for structural repairs the landlord should have covered. Cost him $12k. He said always have a lawyer who does commercial real estate look at it, not just any lawyer. Now I'm second guessing the lease I'm about to sign for my shop. Anybody else run into nightmare lease stuff?

2 comments

2 Comments

hugo2364d ago

Are you sure that landlord wasn't just trying to scare you into paying for HIS lawyer? I've signed three commercial leases and a standard local lawyer caught every scam clause without the specialized rate.

calebw502d ago

Are you sure that landlord wasn't just trying to scare you?" - see, that's exactly the kind of thinking that gets people screwed over in commercial leases. In my experience, specialized commercial real estate lawyers catch things a general practice lawyer misses all the time. One buddy had a "percentage rent" clause that triggered based on gross revenue including online sales, not just in-store, and his regular lawyer didn't flag it. Cost him 8% of his web traffic income for two years. Another friend got stuck with a "continuous operations" clause that forced him to keep his store open 7 days a week even when he wanted to scale back, while his family lawyer said it was standard. I'd rather pay a specialist $500 extra upfront than gamble on hidden costs that could hit five figures.