Enforce your leases!!

Every property owner wants to maintain a positive relationship with their tenants.  However, many property owners and managers are risking severe consequences by allowing tenants to take advantage of them.  Don't get me wrong.  The property functions much better when tenants and landlords get along.  However, that relationship can break very quickly, when the landlord is exposed to unintentional risk when a tenant conducts business that falls outside of their lease.

Leases are in place to protect tenants and landlords from conducting risky or perhaps dangerous business practices while operating at your property.  Therefore, if a tenant or neighboring property owner is considering pursuing something that falls outside of the lease language or easement agreement, assess a value, draft an agreement. obtain an insurance waiver and collect a fee.

While many landlords are turning these opportunities into profit centers, they started as a means to protect themselves from over ambitious tenants.  For example, consider during the holidays when many retailers receive an increase in merchandise.  Many of them, don't have space within their stores to store the extra product.  Also, very few leases provide for additional storage outside of the tenant's four walls.  In big box shopping centers, retailers have placed ugly, potentially harmful storage containers behind stores as a means to accommodate the increase in product.  These containers can provide harm to store employees, damage to your common areas where they are placed and third party vendors.  These containers are not included the lease and therefore can be a huge liability risk to landlords.  Some tenants place over 20 of these containers on your common area.  When they are removed, who is left to clean up the message and make repairs....THE LANDLORD.

Tenants are also coming out of their stores to conduct events and place additional signage.  I believe landlords should give their tenants every opportunity to succeed.  However, it shouldn't come at the expense of the landlord.  If something were to happen to a store employee, landlord employee, third party vendor, shopper etc... as a result of the tenant's unapproved activities, the landlord would be the one answering questions on the activity, not the tenant.  

My advice to all is monitor your tenants activities a little more closely.  Enforce your leases to the dotted and "i" and crossed "t".  You can make some money on these instances but the money you can save from lawsuits, attorney fees and any other legal strife that could come from unapproved tenant activity is countless.