My contractor's critique on my lease addendum saved a renewal dispute

I drafted a renewal clause for a commercial lease in Fresno and thought it was solid, but my contractor pointed out I missed the CAM reconciliation deadline language. He said, 'You need to state who pays when the audit comes back over 30 days late.' That edit stopped a tenant from holding back $2,300 in disputed fees last month. Has anyone else had a third party catch a gap in their lease paperwork that a lawyer missed?

2 comments

2 Comments

grace_gonzalez469d ago

Learned that one the hard way with a ground lease in Bakersfield. My property manager, not the attorney, caught that the renewal notice had to be hand delivered AND certified mailed, not just one or the other. Tenant tried to claim they never got it because the certified slip came back unsigned. We had to redo the whole notice cycle and lost two months of negotiation time. Now I run every draft past my PM and my bookkeeper before it goes to the lawyer for the final pass. They catch the practical stuff like payment timing and who covers the inspection fees, stuff that sounds fine on paper but bites you in real life.

jackson.matthew9d ago

The bookkeeper tip is spot on. That's exactly who catches the stuff the lawyer bills you for but doesn't think about. For me, it was the janitorial sub-contractor who noticed our renewal had an option to extend but didn't say the base year CAM expenses were locked at the original lease rate. Tenant tried to argue we were re-negotiating from scratch on the extension. A one line fix saved me about nine grand. Now I do the same thing, run it past the people who actually deal with the building first, then the attorney just checks it for legal language.