Commercial Leases - Tenants & Landlords

San Francisco Bay Area Business Attorney Peter Stanwyck represents both businesses as tenants and and commercial property owners as landlords in negotiating and drafting commercial leases and resolving commercial lease disputes.

The commercial lease which secures the location of a business is a critical component of a business. For a small business, when location is a critical element of good will, the lease not only secures the prosperity of the business, it also makes it possible for the business owner to sell the business, with its goodwill to another.

The commercial lease also represents a very significant component of expense, often larger than the cost of acquiring a business.

And, if the business owner incurs significant cost for tenant improvements, with a long term lease with options those costs will not be recovered.
Commercial Leases like any business agreement are negotiable. While rent and length are the most obvious issues, the devil is in the small details contained in lengthy, small print and difficult to read leases. Long lease forms and generally written only from the landlord’s perspective and contain numerous fine points that favor them. Just as an example, the forms often provide that the tenant is responsible for bring the landlord’s property up to code or ADA compliance even if the conditions pre-existed the tenancy, if not discovered by the tenant within a short period of time. There are numerous issues like this hidden within the thicket of a commercial lease that should be addressed

Peter Stanwyck, Oakland lawyer and small business attorney represents small and medium sized businesses in the San Francisco Bay Area, Alameda County, Contra Costa County, San Mateo County, Santa Clara County, Marin CountySan Francisco, Berkeley, Hayward, Fremont, Lafayette, Walnut Creek, Pleasanton Castro Valley, El Cerrito