Business lease

About this lease

This lease has been drawn for letting a suite of rooms, or a whole floor, of a multi-tenanted building for business use. The building could be a modern office “block” or a refurbished older building.

Although drawn by reference to office use, the lease can be adapted very easily to any multi let commercial building.

This is a professionally drawn, very comprehensive lease with massive legal protection for the landlord including a long menu of “do’s” and “don’ts”.

This lease is not a compromise between the interests of the parties. It prefers the landlord’s interest. We think that is the best start point. If you wish to make concessions to your tenant, that is fine, but we want you have those choices.

It includes service charge provisions to provide 100% recovery of service costs.

Similar business lease agreements

If you are letting an entire office building to a single tenant, look at Self contained office lease agreement. 

Key features

Plain English is used throughout except where it is necessary to use legal terms common in this field of law.

The key features of this template can be summarised as:

• standard guarantor
• options for transfer or assignment to another party
• sub-letting forbidden
• option to include a break clause for premature termination by the tenant
• a choice of options for rent reviews
• a draft agreement for a security deposit has also been included

The law in this office lease

Business lease law is regulated primarily by the Lease of Land Act 1969. If the term of this lease is longer than ten years it must be registered at the Deed Registry Office at:

http://www.deeds.gov.za/ITSODeedsWebB/deedsweb/welcome.jsp

Lease contents

This office lease is comprehensive, providing alternative choices for important decisions.

The contents include 25 provisions and 3 schedules covering:

• rent: period, amount, other payments, interest on overdue rent, periodic review
• condition and repair
• tenant's positive obligations
• restrictions on tenant: prohibited activities on the property
• signs and advertisements
• goods and vehicles
• assignment of the lease
• indemnities by the tenant
• security deposit
• insurance
• access for landlord
• guarantor
• termination: default notice by landlord; provision for premature termination (a break clause)
• forfeiture
• Schedule 1: the service charge
• Schedule 2: rights reserved
• Schedule 3: draft agreement for a security deposit