commercial property leasing

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From: Phillip Monk


Hi, this is my first post here for about 9 months. In between I bought a floor of an office block for $175K on the Adelaide CBD fringe and spent $60K having it refitted. It's a mix of smaller (6x3) offices and a couple of larger (13x6) offices. I've got the larger offices let on long term leases but I've had a lot of trouble getting the shorter ones let.

The reasons for this, as I found through trial and error, are:
- agents are not really interested in letting small areas, as there's not much commission in it for them. That's all right, I've decided to do the marketing of the offices myself.
- most tenants looking for small offices also want flexibility, so they are scared to even sign a six-month lease. Most want to go monthly or at most 3-monthly.
- the cost of drawing up a single lease agreement with a lawyer is horrendous compared to the overall value of the lease

Is there anyone on the forum who has had experience letting small commercial offices on short term leases? What I'm looking for is a generic lease document which I can tailor to each individual lease. The lawyer I've been dealing with hasn't seemed to interested in helping me do this, he'd rather fleece me and the tenant $800 a time to photocopy his own lease agreement and slap a page of terms and conditions on the front which take him 1/2 an hour to type!

Cheers,
Phil.
 
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Reply: 1
From: Anonymous


Phillip

Get a new lawyer. You've obviously got cash - don't be pennywise and pound foolish.

Or if you're hard headed, foolish, don't mind breaching copyright and are a fast typer then copy type an existing agreement.

Another option may be to see if your local Real Estate Institute has a standard commercial tenancy form that you can buy for a few dollars...

I'm pretty sure there's such a beast in Qld, not sure re other states.
 
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Reply: 1.1
From: Michael Yardney


Another great idea for the leasing of small office areas is to let them out on a shorter term lease (like you say the tenants want) at a higher rent or as serviced offices. These can be as simple as providing just the office furniture to as complex as providing receptionists and typing services.
It's a concept that is booming in Melbourne.
A solicitor, or the Real Estate Institute can provide you with a generic lease that you can use over and over again
Michael Yardney
Metropole Properties
 
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