Commercial Real Estate Toronto

For over 25 years, Anthony Dyson has been negotiating on behalf of tenants in the Toronto and GTA. His motto has been to reduce rental costs for tenant and making sure it it done right.

Leasing office space, can lead a tenant to problem areas that foresaw. The system has been set up by landlord's for landlords and is inherently unfair for tenants of all sizes.

Anthony levels the playing field by bringing his considerable experience into play on behalf of tenants.

Anthony helps tenants reduce costs by aggressively negotiating not only for lower net rentals but also helps tenants reduce hidden costs in the following areas which can be found in so called standard commercial leases:

1. Operating Costs. Landlords often boost revenues by inserting clauses into the lease that offload costs onto the tenant that can be renegotiated in the tenant's favor. Most landlords agents are not only unaware of such unfair clauses, but unmotivated to change them if they are, for obvious reasons.

2. Tenant Improvements. Many tenants, do not have enough time to build out the tenant improvements before they start paying rent. Typically, this is a result of landlord clauses in the offer to lease, which can be easily circumvented. Tenants have a lot of strength before the offer and very little after.

At the end of a lease term, tenants are required to remove from the leased premises all the improvements at considerable cost to the tenant. In addition, many items, which you would like to keep automatically become the property of the landlord upon installation, even if the tenant paid for them. This is obviously unfair and totally legal. Anthony often is able to renegotiate this in the tenant's favor.

3. Parking. Tenants are often unaware that they may be paying to maintain areas of parking that are public areas for which the landlord is charging outsiders fees. This can be avoided.

4. Re-measurement of the Premises. Often clauses are inserted by landlords that allow them to remeasure the premises and adjust the rent accordingly when measuring standards change. These clauses if left in place, can mean an unexpected increase in rent. This can be avoided.

5. Options to Renew. If the lease contains an option to renew in typically the tenant must exercise this option anywhere between 6 and 12 months prior to the end of the term. If the tenant forgets to notify the landlord of this option, the tenant loses its right to renew and the landlord is free to rent the premises to a third party. This cannot be avoided but should be pointed out.

These are only a few of the hidden items that can be found in a "standard" commercial lease. Unless these and other items are negotiated out of the lease at the offer to lease stage, even large companies with expensive lawyers may find themselves stuck with costs that could have been avoided by an expert negotiator.

There are other hidden costs many of which are detailed in Anthony's book and articles on this website. Landlords have many tricks that increase tenant costs. It is therefore important to get an real estate lease expert to negotiate for you and not just rely on a lawyer to make changes after an offer has been negotiated and leverage has been lost forever.

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