Some suggestions for owners and tenants for "smoother" leasing

1. How long is the lease term?
2. What is the rent?
3. When will there be an increase in rent?(or decrease in rent - oh yes! Ever heard of it!)
4. What method is used to increase the rent?
   Will it be a fixed increase of say 5% each year?
   Will it be the market rent at the time of the review?
   Will it increase according to the Consumer Price Index?
   Or will it be a combination of all these methods?
5. Will the tenant have an option for another term or may be two or three further terms after the expiry of the initial term?
6. What is to happen if the Government introduces new taxes which impact on the owner? Is the owner entitled to claim that increase from the tenant? If so, how much of the new tax?
7. If the tenant is in arrears in rent, is the tenant to pay interest?
8. If the premises are in a shopping centre, should the tenant be required to upgrade the shop every now and again to keep abreast with new shops in the centre? If you can refurbish a shop front for $10,000.00 today you would probably be doing well - this is a considerable cost to a tenant and may put the business out of action!
9. Who is responsible for insurance if the roof is blown off in a storm or a take-away shop is burnt down when the grease in the exhaust system catches fire?
10. Who will replace the carpets or the fluorescent light tubes when they blow? And what about that blockage in the drain at the back of the shop?
11. And the list continues. We will not bore you further, but these some of the matters a lease will have to cover and the earlier you think about them in your negotiations, the easier the job will be for both parties!

Both parties should know the content of the lease. We are sure that many landlords have never read their leases and would not really understand why a tenant may be complaining about it.

We feel sure that if both owners and tenants made a study of the leases, the documents would come down in size. It seems to me that lawyers work on the principle that the more you put in a document, the safer. This cannot be right and parties should check the documents and make sure that all the 'guff' is removed from them. If this occurs, the work will cost less and both parties probably feel more comfortable.