Customer Reviews

Negotiate Your Commercial Lease

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1 star:		(2)

 

 

I did not feel the book was worth the time or money. It is like an ad for Dale Willertons other services. Just touches on things and no worthwhile details.

If you really want to understand and prepare for a commercial lease negotiation consider:
The Commercial Lease Guidebook: Learn How to Win the Leasing Game! (Paperback) by Thomas G. Mitchell

This book does give an introduction to commercial leases, and the author tells a number of anecdotes that are useful, but overall, it lacks critical information that could turn a lease into a nightmare.

For instance, the Introduction says "For example, knowing that a personal guarantee is not in your best interests is a far cry from knowing how to make the personal guarantee go away."

Guess what? Personal guarantees are not discussed at all in the book.

The author also makes no mention at all of break clauses. If you don't have one and your business closes, the landlord will go after you and your personal assets for all the rent and costs for the full five year lease (remember how this book didn't tell you how to get out of that personal guarantee?).

The last chapter "Hiring Professionals" is nothing more than an advertisement for the author's franchised business, "The Lease Coach".

While there is potentially useful information here, it would be a (potentially very costly) mistake to rely on just this book.

After reading this book, I was able to negotiate lowewr prices, the owner to upgrade and free rent periods.
It saved me thousands of dollars for the next few years.

Negotiate Your Commercial Lease by Dale R Willerton

Are you a business person who will lease a space for your business? There are so many things to research and plan with a business and especially when starting or moving a business. So, a lease might not be something that we make a priority. But, signing a bad lease and not understanding the details of a lease can cause a business person long term problems. That is why this review focuses on a book about how to Negotiate Your Commercial Lease.

Leases are something that many people think are simple. In some cases, they couldn't be more wrong. A lease can be a nightmare if you don't know or understand the details. Signing the wrong lease can also cause you all sorts of problems over the follow year or two or more.
When people look at a property, they usually are shown the property by a realtor, the owner, or an agent. I've personally been burned by details that were told to me verbally, but that didn't make it to the final lease. Thankfully, my lease negotiations have gone well, but after reading this book, I'll never look at this part of business the same.

The book is packed with great information. Here are some of the chapter titles -
1 - Commercial Lease Agreement.
2 - Selecting the Best Site for Your Business.
3 - Determining Square Footage.
4 - Selecting the Best Lease Term.
5 - Negotiating Strategies and Tactics.
6 - Negotiating Operating Costs.
7 - Negotiating the Rental Rate.
8 - Negotiating Free Rent.
9 - Negotiating the Tenant Allowance of Leasehold Improvements.
10 - Negotiating the Lease Deposit.
11 - Negotiating a Rent Reduction.
12 - Other Negotiating Points.
13 - Hiring Professionals.

I have to tell you that I am a very good negotiator, so I've never considered hiring a professional to negotiate anything - mainly because I wouldn't trust them to negotiate with me, so why would I hire them. But after reading this book - if I was going to lease a place, I would take a look at the lease and if it was complicated, I would hire a professional to at least review it for me. One thing I really would've liked in the book is a glossary of lease and property terms.

Otherwise, I was impressed by the depth and breadth of the information in this book. It Is a fairly quick read and the table of contents lists all subtopics, so you can zero in on specific information quickly. If you are going to lease a property for your business - you really need to read this book. I was amazed after 10-15 rental negotiations of my own, to find the number of topics in this book that didn't sound familiar to me. If a topic isn't familiar - the chance of getting a satisfactory resolution for yourself is almost impossible.

The author has been a certified lease consultant for over 15 years and has extensive experience with lease negotiating and consulting. He gives weekly seminars throughout North America and he is a consultant for tenants. On the back cover- the blurb says to read the book once if you are renewing a contract and twice if you are negotiating a new lease. Yes - there is that much detail and that much great information packed into less than 100 pages.