Business Tenants: beware traps in Leases!

Prospective tenants should be wary of obligations imposed on them by leases offered by land lords, warns David Morris, leading the commercial property team at Humphreys & Co., solicitors.

Your rent may be low, the term of your lease may be short, but don’t fall into the trap of thinking that this means your financial exposure is minimal. Your premises may be among your most important assets, but being a tenant is a liability, often long-term, whether your business is a shop, an office, a restaurant, a pub, an industrial unit or any other commercial property.

Even a few words in the text of a lease (and they are long documents) can be significant. For example, an obligation to keep the property “in good and substantial repair and condition” is more extensive an obligation than to keep it just “in good and substantial repair”. Tenants who try a DIY job on the text can easily be caught out, and find themselves stuck with a burdensome lease for a long time. Words agreed casually can come back to bite you when the landlord inspects the premises insisting upon expensive repairs and redecoration, and again at the end of the term when you are sued for failing to return the premises in the condition required by the lease, or when you apply to the court for a new lease – which is granted on substantially the same terms as the original.


To avoid unpleasant surprises down the line, when all that turgid text is thrown back at you with a long list of demands, any aspiring business tenant will prudently source in written advice and representation on the deal from commercial solicitors. In the case of new leases, there is often scope for securing changes to that all-important wording before the lease is granted, to get it into the least onerous form that can be agreed, potentially saving tenant substantial future costs’ exposure.


Even if the landlord refuses to agree to any changes, by having sourced in proper advice as a tenant you at least take on the burden of the lease with your eyes open as to the obligations being imposed on you. Having commercial property solicitors dealing gives you business professionals on your side with experience and know-how: legal costs at the outset are likely to be small compared to the long-term financial risks you might face from unexpected legal effects of lease wording agreed to DIY.

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Keywords: planning appeals, planning permission, commercial property for sale

By: Jack Potter

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