It's expensive to rent office space especially if you have a new or expanding business.
The cool thing is that there are a number of tips that you can put into place in order to get the best office and have a great experience with your landlord.
Here are some of the tips: Agreement This is a document that details the agreement between you and the landlord.
Before you sign the agreement you should go through it thoroughly and ensure that there is no information that isn't ideal for your business.
One of the major factors that you should consider are the rent increase over the term.
You should also consider the renewal options that you have with the landlord.
As rule of thumb you should ensure that the landlord doesn't have the freedom of increasing the rent without a warning.
You should also agree on the deadline of making the rent payments.
You also need to agree on what you should do if the payments aren't made on time.
To come up with a good agreement it's wise that you work with a broker who will negotiate with the landlord on your behalf.
The best way of going about it is working with an estate lawyer who will help you with the landlord negotiations.
Hidden fees It's common for real estate landlords to have hidden fees which are usually in form of extra expenses.
Such expenses include: maintenance fees and upkeep for shared facilities such as the common areas.
To have a better understanding you should find out how the expenses are measured-whether they are metered individually or apportioned by square footage.
During your discussion with the landlord you should ask about these expenses and enquire about their policies.
Protect your business Your business is very precious; therefore, you should protect it with all your might.
This calls for you to investigate and negotiate potential add-on clauses such as: Sublease: this allows you to sublet your space to another business which builds in some flexibility.
Co-tenancy: this is an agreement that protects you from losing your customers.
The agreement allows you to break the lease agreement in the event the landlord fails to replace you within a given period of time.
Exclusive clause: this one prevents the landlord from leasing the same property to another business that is a direct competitor.
Conclusion These are tips on how to rent an office space.
Ensure that you do your research in order to rent the right office for you and your employees.