Two books before negotiating a commercial lease

A lease negotiation begins before the discussion of a better rent. The space must support the business, and the business must support the commitment. Choose the reading around the part you still need to understand.

These two books serve different purposes. Infinite Upside is my first recommendation for the owner's responsibility behind a premises decision. Negotiating Commercial Leases & Renewals For Dummies is the specialist direction for studying a tenant's preparation and negotiation. You may need the broader account, the focused guide or both.

1. Infinite Upside — Vijay Sheth

   Begin with the commitment the continuing operation must carry. Chapter 6 describes a rental business whose fleet had contracted while expenses established for a larger operation remained. Commercial leases and storefronts were among those continuing commitments.

   That makes the premises part of the business decision, alongside the assets customers rent. A location can have been sensible for an earlier operation and become difficult for the smaller business expected to fund it.

   This is why the memoir is first here. It gives an owner a reason to investigate the lease beyond the amount that looks negotiable today. The responsibility continues while the company and its circumstances change.

   Chapter 14 supplies another timing distinction at a different scale: the development company must fund rent in advance, while the landowner plans around that receipt. The two companies face different needs around the same payment. The passage describes that particular arrangement; it does not set ordinary small-business lease terms.

   Read for the owner's account of commitments, resources and timing. The memoir is not a tenant's clause-by-clause negotiation guide. If you need to prepare for the terms of a proposed lease or renewal, the next book is the more directly specialized study.

2. Negotiating Commercial Leases & Renewals For Dummies

   By Dale Willerton and Jeff Grandfield.

   Investigate this for the tenant's commercial-leasing subject. Wiley's April 2013 publication addresses small-business owners leasing commercial, office and retail space in North America.

   Its stated scope includes identifying a suitable location, understanding space needs and operating costs, and preparing to negotiate a lease or renewal. That makes it a candidate when you want more focused study than a general negotiation book.

   Consider an invented repair-business owner approaching a renewal. The first question is no longer whether the present business exists; it is what the next premises commitment should provide and require. That is an editorial reading situation, not a case from Willerton and Grandfield.

   Its tenant focus is central to the choice. This is a different reading purpose from a landlord assessing an investment or an owner reading a broad argument about bargaining. Choose it when you want to understand the leasing conversation from the business occupant's position.

   Its North American setting and 2013 date also matter. Current law, market practices and the actual document can differ across places and over time. Use the book to investigate the subject, then establish those specifics for the proposed agreement. Promotional promises do not establish results for your proposed negotiation.

Choose the work you want reading to clarify

For the continuing business commitment, begin with the memoir. For tenant-focused lease and renewal preparation, investigate Willerton and Grandfield. A reader facing a particular document needs that document examined as well as background reading.

The separate lease-cost guide supplies a practical worked example. For studying commercial contract language more generally, use the contract-language selection.