Lease Agreements Review

What is a Lease Agreement Review?

Unlike franchise agreements (which are rarely modified), in my practice I have encountered encouraging flexibility among many types of landlords when it comes to negotiating the content and the deal points affecting of their commercial leases with business owners.  First, there is no "standard" commercial lease form.  There are as many commercial lease forms circulating around Houston as there are lawyers and law firms representing landlords.  My initial advice: don’t sign a letter of intent with a landlord until you have spoken with legal counsel.  If you leave out key deal points, or don’t understand the impact of a deal point, landlords are uniformly reluctant to budge from a position that they believe significantly changes the initial "bargain" between the parties.  Although most letters of intent are understood as non-binding, landlords as a group don’t like to change deal points in mid-stream.  My next advice: remember that the leasing agent or broker represents the landlord.  Although they may be gracious and very accommodating, they represent the landlord.

How do I know if I Need a Lease Agreement Review?

If you want a disinterested review and assessment of the lease agreement, retain a lawyer to review the lengthy commercial lease. Reviewing the commercial lease can be a time consuming undertaking, and to a lawyer, time is money.  And then explaining and summarizing the lease to the client is also a lengthy commitment of time.  But if you don’t understand the lease and then sign it, you will be bound by your agreement, whether or not you understand the lease.

I assist clients in reviewing, interpreting, and negotiating commercial lease agreements (for example, commercial office buildings, strip shopping centers, centralized mall shopping centers, and various types of commercial buildings).