One of the emerging trends we’ve seen in Montreal commercial real estate over the last couple of years is that of commercial condominiums. The development of this market has been fuelled by record-low interest rates, elevated downtown leasing rents, a desire for real estate ownership and strong residential condo construction.
Although the commercial condo market is [...]

From the Sub-Landlord’s perspective there is also a risk that the Sub-Tenant it leases to defaults on its obligations. Sub-Landlords should undertake a credit check on any prospective tenants and require a security deposit in accordance with the risk level associated with the tenant’s creditworthiness.
Once a deal to sublease is concluded between the Sub-Landlord and [...]

Real estate needs for corporations are constantly evolving. Whereas a company may have once needed 20,000 square feet of office space to run its business, a technological shift, budgetary cut, outsourcing or a variety of other reasons, now enables that same company to operate in 10,000 square feet or even work remotely. That company is [...]

The answer to this question will be very different for large space users, smaller users and ‘high growth’ users. Larger organizations tend to occupy significant chunks of space and are locked into long-term leases, typically with 10-year periods. The larger the occupant, the more strategic the consideration and the more time is required ahead of [...]

Following our first blog on ‘How long a lease term should I be signing for’, some of our readers pointed out that an Option to Cancel can also be negotiated and built into the lease to increase the tenant’s flexibility. What the Option to Cancel does for the tenant is that it allows them to benefit from [...]

If you are leasing office space on an ‘as is’ basis, meaning the landlord is not making any modifications to the space, it should be fairly easy to negotiate your way out of this one by instead offering a small deposit (ie first and last month).
Anytime a landlord is investing money into your premises, whether [...]

A tenant improvement allowance (TIA) or leasehold improvement allowance is essentially a renovation budget.
Many office buildings have a TI budget included in the rental rate they quote to prospective tenants. This is a key point of a negotiation as it could lead to a classic case of comparing apples to oranges. For example, Building A could [...]

The answer to this question, as for so many others is, it depends on what your business needs are. Typically speaking, most strategic business plans for companies with stable growth have 5 year visions, missions and goals and therefore the most common lease term these companies sign for is 5 years. Companies with extremely strong balance sheets [...]