Most commercial landlords own multiple properties. Some of these properties can even be divided up into multiple spaces. After a while, the landlord owns too many properties to keep track of and/or manage easily. So, the landlord starts to streamline the rental process. This is the same as any standard operating procedure you might have that contains forms to help streamline a process that you do over and over again.
Form Lease Agreements
To help streamline the rental process, the landlords may use form rental agreements. You may even have one of these. You can usually identify them because the first page is a summary page. The summary page lists the essential terms of the lease and makes reference to other sections for ”further explanation.” After that first page can be up to 20 or 30 additional pages full of thick long paragraphs of legal language. These additional pages often try to cover all kinds of various scenarios that could arise during the term of your lease. Most of it is fairly unimportant until there is an issue. For example, as a new gym owner, you aren’t really concerned about the sublease and assignment paragraphs of your commercial lease. However, if you decide to sell your gym, then those paragraphs become very important. However, you still need to be aware of what is in these pages and here’s why.
Don’t Make Too Much Noise
Typically, buried amongst all of this legal language, and possibly even buried in an attachment is a noise restriction. There will be a random sentence that says something about the tenant being prohibited from causing any noise that would be a nuisance to any other tenants or the businesses surrounding the premises. Here is the problem, we own gyms. We make noise by our very nature.
Know What You Are Signing
We rarely tell gym owners not to sign a lease. When we review a lease, our primary goal is to educate the gym owner about what he/she is signing. However, when we see a noise restriction in a lease, we have to advise the gym owner not to sign. Unless you are a yoga or pilates studio, you have to assume you are going to make noise. We cannot advise you to sign a lease that you are then going to violate simply by operating your business.
If you have questions about what is in your lease, please reach out.
