Health care rent is not like a commercial office rent. In addition to base rent, most commercial tenants pay some or all of the landlord's operating expenses ("CAM Charges"). Yet medical tenants need to cope with the disposal of biomedical waste and have greater privacy concerns than many tenants.
If you are acting without benefit of counsel, you will make sure that the business terms (rental rate, length of lease term, landlord allowances, and the like) match your discussions with the broker, and then you are apt to sign the lease, perhaps assuming that all of that "legal boilerplate" in the fine print is standard in every lease and basically not subject to negotiation in any case. All too often, the failure to carefully review and negotiate those boilerplate provisions may come back to haunt you down the road.
Medical uses usually violate the boilerplate use provisions in most retail and office leases. In addition to modifying the use provisions, landlords and tenants should consider the representations and warranties within the lease, together with the hours of operation. Patients are more likely than the general public to have special access needs. Buildings containing health care providers are more likely to receive ADA scrutiny.
Rent Commencement Date. Surprisingly, one of the points over which landlords and tenants argue most frequently is the date on which rent begins to be payable at the commencement of the lease term. Due primarily to poor draftsmanship, the question is often very gray and, unfortunately, the tenant often must begin to pay rent before he or she would have reasonably expected to be obligated to do so.
The underlying problem is fairly simple. In the typical medical office lease, the landlord undertakes the construction of certain improvements in the premises prior to turning the space over to the tenant for occupancy. As a new tenant, you expect to walk into your finished office, move in your furniture, and then begin paying rent on the day you open for business. All too often, however, the lease provides for a fixed date on which rent will commence to be payable and there is no provision for delaying that date if completion of the landlord's work is delayed.
The landlord needs to have an opportunity to verify that the tenant's needs for HVAC, plumbing, electricity, and other infrastructure needs fit the building's capacity. Some representative of the landlord should have an opportunity to inspect the work in progress.
Operating Expenses and Taxes. While some leases simply provide for a monthly rent, others also require the tenant to reimburse to the landlord a share of the operating expenses and taxes for the property. While there are many subtle changes that can be made to these provisions by an experienced real estate lawyer (depending on the form that the landlord is using), at a minimum a tenant should expect to receive a photocopy of the real estate tax bill for the property (as opposed to simply receiving a statement from the landlord) each year, to verify that he or she is not being overcharged. Likewise, the landlord's statement of operating expenses should be reasonably detailed and the tenant should be afforded an annual right to review and audit the landlord's books and records relating to both operating expenses and taxes, in order to verify that charges have been correctly computed by the landlord.
Virtually all office and retail leases contain provisions addressing the landlord's and tenant's rights and responsibilities regarding restoration obligations at the end of the lease. These provisions need to dovetail with the special situation of a medical tenant.
If you are acting without benefit of counsel, you will make sure that the business terms (rental rate, length of lease term, landlord allowances, and the like) match your discussions with the broker, and then you are apt to sign the lease, perhaps assuming that all of that "legal boilerplate" in the fine print is standard in every lease and basically not subject to negotiation in any case. All too often, the failure to carefully review and negotiate those boilerplate provisions may come back to haunt you down the road.
Medical uses usually violate the boilerplate use provisions in most retail and office leases. In addition to modifying the use provisions, landlords and tenants should consider the representations and warranties within the lease, together with the hours of operation. Patients are more likely than the general public to have special access needs. Buildings containing health care providers are more likely to receive ADA scrutiny.
Rent Commencement Date. Surprisingly, one of the points over which landlords and tenants argue most frequently is the date on which rent begins to be payable at the commencement of the lease term. Due primarily to poor draftsmanship, the question is often very gray and, unfortunately, the tenant often must begin to pay rent before he or she would have reasonably expected to be obligated to do so.
The underlying problem is fairly simple. In the typical medical office lease, the landlord undertakes the construction of certain improvements in the premises prior to turning the space over to the tenant for occupancy. As a new tenant, you expect to walk into your finished office, move in your furniture, and then begin paying rent on the day you open for business. All too often, however, the lease provides for a fixed date on which rent will commence to be payable and there is no provision for delaying that date if completion of the landlord's work is delayed.
The landlord needs to have an opportunity to verify that the tenant's needs for HVAC, plumbing, electricity, and other infrastructure needs fit the building's capacity. Some representative of the landlord should have an opportunity to inspect the work in progress.
Operating Expenses and Taxes. While some leases simply provide for a monthly rent, others also require the tenant to reimburse to the landlord a share of the operating expenses and taxes for the property. While there are many subtle changes that can be made to these provisions by an experienced real estate lawyer (depending on the form that the landlord is using), at a minimum a tenant should expect to receive a photocopy of the real estate tax bill for the property (as opposed to simply receiving a statement from the landlord) each year, to verify that he or she is not being overcharged. Likewise, the landlord's statement of operating expenses should be reasonably detailed and the tenant should be afforded an annual right to review and audit the landlord's books and records relating to both operating expenses and taxes, in order to verify that charges have been correctly computed by the landlord.
Virtually all office and retail leases contain provisions addressing the landlord's and tenant's rights and responsibilities regarding restoration obligations at the end of the lease. These provisions need to dovetail with the special situation of a medical tenant.
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