Commercial Lease Agreement

It comes down to who pays the building's operating costs. In a gross (or full-service) lease the rent is a single figure and the landlord covers property taxes, insurance, and maintenance; in a net lease the tenant takes on some of those costs on top of base rent; and in a triple-net (NNN) lease the tenant pays base rent plus its share of all three — taxes, insurance, and common area maintenance (CAM). Spell out which structure you're using directly in the lease so nobody is surprised by a bill later. This is general guidance, not legal advice, and what's customary can vary by market.

Often, yes. Because the tenant on a commercial lease is usually a company — an LLC or corporation — landlords frequently ask an owner or principal to sign a personal guaranty so they can still collect rent from that individual if the business defaults. A guaranty can be unlimited or capped, such as a 'good-guy' guaranty that limits exposure as long as the tenant vacates properly and pays through that date. Whether to give one, and on what terms, is a negotiation point worth weighing carefully — a lawyer can help you read the fine print before you commit.

Commercial leases almost always build in escalations because the term runs several years. The usual methods are a fixed percentage bump each year (say 3%), stepped increases to set dollar amounts on specific dates, or an adjustment tied to an index like the Consumer Price Index (CPI). Decide on the method, the timing, and any cap before signing, then write it into the rent clause so both sides know exactly what's owed each year. Market norms differ by region, so treat this as informational rather than legal advice.

Only if the lease allows it, and most commercial leases require the landlord's written consent first. There's a real difference between a sublease — where the original tenant stays on the hook and rents part or all of the space to a third party — and an assignment, where a new party takes over the lease entirely. If keeping flexibility matters to the tenant, it's worth negotiating language saying consent 'won't be unreasonably withheld.' This is general information only; how these clauses are enforced depends on your jurisdiction.

A person with authority to bind the company signs on its behalf — usually a manager, officer, or owner — and the signature block should show their name, their title, and the entity's legal name, for example 'Jane Doe, Manager, Acme Coffee LLC.' When you send the lease through tuyaform you can add signature, date, and name/title fields for each party and route it to the landlord and the tenant's representative in sequence. Every completed PDF is sealed against tampering and comes with a Certificate of Completion logging who signed and when, which is what helps the signed lease hold up if it's ever questioned.