Flexibility Wins In Legal Lease Negotiations

But, to secure new leases, brokers, landlords, and tenants have to adapt to changing circumstances. This has made adaptability a crucial characteristic in the process of transforming a handshake into a signed lease.

Legal leasing has become more complex and resilient because of this essential element of adaptability. Because reasonable requests have never been made before, adaptability increases resilience. On the other hand, a more flexible process is more difficult because almost every aspect can change. To ensure that every letter intent results in a signed lease agreement, all parties must be open to re-engineering and possibly changing any part of the process.

These are some suggestions to help increase your chances of achieving the desired outcome in your legal leasing negotiations: a signed lease that is both favorable for the landlord and tenant.

The Black Box is Opened

You can think of legal leasing as a black box where raw ingredients (including the letter-of-intent and initial lease draft) are transformed by attorneys, landlords, tenants, brokers, and attorneys into a signed contract. The black box is a complex web of interrelated tasks that must be managed and understood. It is essential to balance speed and precision. The temptation to rush must be balanced against the necessity to compromise.

The relative bargaining power between the landlord and tenant is what looms overall. It would be absurd for the 80-pound tenant, whether it is the local tenant with no financial strength or the owner of a small office building, to overreach, especially if the other party is an 800-pound gorilla.

Do Not Forget The Essentials

In every lease transaction, urgency overrides precision. The need to accommodate exceeds the desire for it all. There are many paths to this crucial point, and it can be challenging to find the right one. It can also be challenging to know when you have arrived. This is why it takes a sixth sense, which even the most skilled practitioners may not always have. The likelihood of a successful lease negotiation increases by paying attention to the following key points: Make sure you have the following essentials to make your legal lease process flawless.

Effective:

Weak links are eliminated, and the lease is signed repeatedly. A weak link might be the tendency of one party to deny the other party's requests in the lease process without considering whether it is reasonable and can be accommodated.

Efficient:

This means that resources are used efficiently, which includes time and costs. A negotiation that takes less time to resolve would be an example of efficiency.

Adaptable:

Unexpected circumstances can be seamlessly accommodated. If an unanticipated governmental regulation is passed during negotiations, the efforts of both sides to address the issue of risk and share responsibility will result in a signed lease.

Don't Be a Dinosaur

A commercial leasing attorney in the retail, office, and industrial sectors can see that the rules change for every product type. The best landlords, tenants, and attorneys, as well as brokers, will be able to adapt to changing market conditions. However, those who are stuck in the past could soon find themselves out of business. The following are three ways landlords and tenants could modernize their approach in the legal leasing process:

• These dinosaur leases, which cover every landlord/tenant problem since the beginning, should be thrown in history.

• Take the time to listen to both sides and not resort back to the old, tired refrain, "This is how we've always done things."

• Find and adopt new ways to tackle roadblocks, no matter if they are old problems that keep you from your goal or new issues that never have been faced.

Use Teamwork Strategies

Legal leasing is often a complex and adversarial negotiation between rivals. This approach has been a failure. It leads to wasted time and money for landlords and tenants and increases the risk of a deal going through. Nevertheless, we have used these strategies for years to avoid posturing and keep the deal alive.

Coach, Plan and Pivot:

Guide your team to constantly change plans of action that are responsive to new realities and issues. Your team should be able to anticipate and plan for changes, regardless of whether they are tenants or landlords. This will ensure that they can make counteroffers and possibly pre-vetted responses as negotiations progress.

Communicate:

Keep everyone updated about all details and the tone of negotiations at every stage. Make sure that everyone in your team knows what to do when there is feedback or a move is made. In some cases, ensure everyone on the other side is also aware.

Teamwork:

Create and then fully utilize good working relationships to ensure that everyone understands their role in the process. It's easier to get responses from your counterparty and other team members if you have good relationships. This will make it much easier to push them to achieve goals and meet deadlines.