A toolkit to guide users through Practical Law's resources for drafting and negotiating the terms of a commercial lease.
This toolkit is a guide to Practical Law's resources for a landlord and tenant who are drafting and negotiating the terms of a commercial lease, including standard form commercial leases and additional or alternative clauses for inclusion in a commercial lease.
This toolkit does not include resources that deal with the legal and transactional considerations for entering into a lease or sublease . For a toolkit containing Practical Law's resources that are relevant when a landlord proposes to grant, or a tenant proposes to take, a lease of commercial or retail premises, see Toolkit, Entering into a lease.
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Practical Law's standard form commercial lease for part of a building is a comprehensive form of lease for commercial premises that is intended for use by a landlord and tenant (and tenant's guarantor , if relevant) who are transacting on an arm's length basis.
For a standard long form commercial lease for part of a building, see Standard document, Commercial lease: part of building.
A lease by reference incorporates the clauses of an existing lease or other document by reference, which avoids repeating each individual clause in the new lease.
Occassionally, and in certain jurisdictions only, a landlord and tenant may agree to enter into a commercial lease which incorporates the terms of an existing lease or a registered memorandum, instead of entering into a long form commercial lease. Similarly, where a tenant proposes to grant a sublease of all or part of its premises to a subtenant, the sublease may incorporate the terms of the head lease with certain variations and additional provisions. This may have the advantage of brevity but the provisions of the existing lease (or head lease) or registered memorandum must be considered carefully. A lease or sublease by reference may not be suitable for use in all cases.
For a standard form sublease of part or the whole of the premises under the head lease, which incorporates the terms of the head lease, see Standard documents, Sublease of part incorporating terms of head lease and Sublease of whole incorporating terms of head lease.
Additional standard clauses which may be included into Practical Law's standard long form commercial lease, if applicable for the relevant leasing transaction.
Alternative standard clauses which may be more appropriate, or preferable to a certain party, for inclusion into the commercial lease, for example:
a more landlord- or tenant-friendly alternative to the clause that is included in Practical Law's standard long form commercial lease;