Leasing Nightmares:  Avoiding Lease Problems Before Opening for Business

Blackacre LLP is a boutique fixed fee real estate law firm with a restaurant leasing specialty.  From its experience serving as counsel to numerous restaurant clients, Blackacre’s attorneys know that a good lease is crucial to a restaurant’s success, while a bad lease can doom an otherwise successful restaurant to failure. In the coming articles, Blackacre’s attorneys will write on how to prevent a restaurant lease from becoming the next “Leasing Nightmare."

While much thought and consideration during lease negotiations is given to protecting a tenant from its landlord’s acts or omissions during the lease term, some of the most commonly-encountered issues after lease execution pertain to the earliest stages of the landlord-tenant relationship, specifically the phase where the parties are preparing and exchanging plans for the premises, obtaining construction and use permits, and building out the space for the tenant’s use – all of which should occur well before a…