About Us > Tenant 5 Step Process

For most tenants the process of leasing a commercial property is a five step process:

Step 1 Find a property through a combination of web searches, trudging the pavements and contacting numerous commercial property agents.
Step 2 Haggle with the agent over the price and how long you want it for.
Step 3 The agent sends a draft lease document to your solicitor for them to review.
Step 4 Your solicitor negotiates the wording of some terms and you sign the documentation.
Step 5 You file the lease document under ‘Other Miscellaneous’

If you want to know all the problems with this go to the ‘learning page’, but here are the top five…

1. The agent is not working for you
2. The agent negotiates hundreds of leases every year, you don’t
3. The ‘deal’ has largely been done (by you) by the time your solicitor gets the lease document so there’s not much they can do
4. It’s unlikely you will be aware of the total cost of the lease even when you have signed it ( there’s Stamp Duty Land Tax, Land Registry fees, buildings insurance, maintenance, reinstatement costs…)
5. The lease document, which you filed in “Other Miscellaneous”, has scores of hidden time bombs waiting to go off. You had better have read it, understood it (or get someone to read it and explain it to you !), highlighted and noted all the key dates, and have given the responsibility to someone to do everything required of you in the Lease.