What you need to know when concluding an office lease agreement

Any company in its activity somehow faced with the problem of finding and arranging an office. For many businesses, the cost of renting an office is the largest of the current costs, so the question of the survival of the company depends on how successful the transaction is.
Many small firms that are limited financially and are not able to pay for the services of intermediaries, starting to search for an office, act as follows:

determine the boundaries of the area where you would like to rent an office;

draw up a list of enterprises and organizations within the selected territory, potentially having office-suitable premises (for example, research institutes, educational institutions, business centers, first floors of residential buildings, etc.);

agree with the leaders or representatives of these organizations about the meeting for possible cooperation.

Such a search scheme for office space is quite effective, but it also has a lot of pitfalls. First of all, inexperienced businessmen, having signed, at first glance, an attractive contract, after a while learn about the need for separate payment for security services, telephone services, utility bills and much more.

What you need to pay attention to when concluding an office lease agreement:
Rent – a loose concept. So the first thing to understand is that the cost of renting an office may or may not include a lot of details: VAT, Internet access fees, telephone lines, utility bills, building security fees, territory cleaning, parking, and even the use of corridors and elevators. Sometimes the landlord can use some services internal factors, and you unexpectedly find that the cost of Internet access, for example, is 3 times the average for the city. Therefore, having received the initial figure, do not be in a hurry to rejoice, and only to the last detail, after finding out all the components of the rent, make a decision on concluding a contract.

Do you have enough electricity? When signing a rental agreement, be sure to verify the available and allowed power supply capacity. This is especially important if your activity is related to working on computers: at some stage a situation may arise when the expansion of the computer park becomes simply impossible.

The state of the office must be fixed. It is equally important to reflect the condition of the office at the time of delivery in the rental agreement. Repeatedly, there were cases that the new “owner” of the office was faced with the need to repair the leaking roof or broken pipes at his own expense simply because he hadn’t stipulated this point separately. An act describing the state of the office may be drafted in a free form, but must be signed by at least two witnesses. Ideally, among other things, it is necessary to prescribe in the contract the administrative and economic responsibility of each party, up to the one who changes the light bulbs in the toilet. If the office you have filmed requires repair, be sure to strive to include the cost of finishing it on the rent bill. In this case, it is desirable that these expenses be reckoned as quickly as possible and not stretched in time.

The procedure for increasing rent. One of the key points for the landlord is the question of whether the rent can be unilaterally raised.

The procedure for termination of the contract. And, of course, the lease agreement should describe the procedure for its termination as detailed as possible. It is advisable to consider all possible options and procedures in each of them. Clearly determine for how long you must notify the owner of the termination of the contract, and whether the prepayment amount will be refunded to you if you decide to leave early.

What you need to know when concluding an office lease agreement
And two more key points
First, whenever possible, never enter into a sublease agreement. Well, if you still sign – be sure to certify it with the direct owner of the area and the notary.

And secondly, when renting a room on the first floor of residential buildings (that is, the one that was transferred from residential to non-residential), be sure to pay attention to the presence of a mark on the profile of the use of the room. If the premises were transferred from the housing stock to the non-residential one under the pharmacy, and you rent it for a restaurant, for example, then the problems with your neighbors are provided to you.