Legally Breaking a Lease

The canny tenant has already anticipated that a lease may need to be broken and has clauses in the original offer to lease that have been negotiated so that breaking a lease is a relatively simple affair.

Now you many not have negotiated such a clause and now want to know how to break a lease.

I negotiated such a clause for one of my clients when he was on top of the world. His company had gone public creating a large cash windfall and his partners then bought him out enabling him to enter into other business pursuits.

Things went well and he more than tripled the amount of space he leased within a very short period of time.

However a few years later business got very bad as a result of a global financial meltdown and he wanted out of his lease.

I advised him that he could sublet but it would likely cost him more than the financial penalty we had negotiated many years before and as the market was very soft for office space at the time – we could not anticipate a quick sublease tenant to enter the picture.

The pre-negotiated clause was his best option and he took it! Pre-planning for future risk paid off for him.

You may also want to read about a lease termination letter

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