Halloween BL TV program is brought to you by O'Flaherty law please enjoy welcome to learn about law my name is kevin o Flaherty from O'Flaherty law today we're going to explain how to negotiate a commercial lease a commercial lease is at least for a business as opposed to a residential lease for a living space so we'll talk first about the types of commercial leases and that's that has an effect on how you negotiate the lease and we'll discuss some tips for actually what you need to look out for when negotiating a commercial lease so first a single net lease also known as a net lease is where the tenant pays for utilities and property taxes on top of a base rent so those might vary and they'll pay the actual cost of the utilities and property taxes on top of a fixed base rent well the landlord is responsible for maintenance repairs and insurance over the building a double net or a net net lease includes insurance on the tenant side so on top of the utilities and property taxes and basement they're paying they're also going to cover the actual insurance premiums for the building while the landlord still pays for maintenance or repairs a triple net lease has the tenant paying for all of the costs of the building except for structural repairs on top of their base rent finally a full-service gross lease has the tenant paying for basically just a flat base rent every month and the landlord is responsible for all of the costs of the building and that rent doesn't change based on the cost of the building the base rent is going to be higher in a full-service gross lease than it is in a triple net lease or any of the net leases we've discussed because the cost of maintaining the building are baked in into that base rent by the landlord so you might be able to get a better deal as a tenant doing something like a triple net lease because the actual cost although uncertain might be less than the actual rent that would be charged in a full service lease while the full service lease gives you certainty as to the amount of rent you're going to be paying and some of your your expenses for occupying that space so let's talk about some important things you need to think about when negotiating the lease one is the length of the lease so a lot of landlords like to have a longer leases a typical lease is one to two years tenants tend to like shorter leases because that gives them flexibility to move or to grow if their business is growing or to contract if they're the number of employees are shrinking so it gives the tenant more flexibility based on changing business environments that they have a shorter lease the upside of a longer lease is certainty if your location