buyer beware - especially when leasing commercial officeby raymond j. jacobi iii, attorney
by Aimee Leffler
Published 2 years ago
Updated 1 year ago
4 min read
Compliance with Laws
Hazardous Materials
Most landlord forms are very explicit in stating that landlord takes on no responsibility for hazardous materials and the tenant has adequately performed all desired investigations. In reality, the cost of a restaurant tenant performing a robust environmental investigation onto the property is usually not economical. Accordingly, tenants should always obtain the landlord’s commitmen…
Landlords additionally place the burden on the tenant to investigate the status of building structure (including the roof, slab, and load bearing walls) and building systems (including HVAC and fire/life safety systems). A potential fault in the gas line to the premises or leak in the roof can stall tenant operations and require extensive construction and disruption to the tenant’s busines…
While almost all commercial lease forms include as-is language, there is usually one major exception to this clause: the scope of work for landlord to perform. Such scope is generally written to bring the shell of the premises into a satisfactory state for tenant to commence performing mostly non-structural restaurant specific work. Tenants should ensure that landlord …
Landlords and sellers alike continue to operate in a commercial real estate landscape that holds firm on the buyer beware mantra, placing all burdens of a transaction on the tenant and buyer, respectively. Small restaurant tenants often do not possess the organizational infrastructure to fully analyze the conditions of the leased real property. Com...