Similar considerations to those outlined in “ Want to buy or sell premises“ , apply when you are taking over an existing lease or taking a new lease.
Also, however, the lease document itself can often be lengthy and will contain many additional
areas of concern to be checked and, sometimes, further negotiated to best suit your requirements, including :

• The rent you will be paying, when it will be reviewed and what factors will influence the setting of the new rent.

• Do you want to request a “ break clause “ allowing you to pull out of the lease at a pre-determined interval, without penalty, should it turn out that the lease does not suit you?

Additional outgoings including any service charges payable, for example, as a contribution to the landlord’s expenses for insuring and maintaining the building or site.

Whether you are liable for a full repairing lease instead, in which case a full survey is strongly recommended to identify any areas of concern and limit your potential outlay.

Whether you are to have the automatic right, on expiry of the lease, to request a new one, on similar terms, or whether the landlord is seeking in the lease to remove that statutory right. This will affect your bargaining power at the end of the lease.

You will want to know what restrictions exist if you want to assign or sublet the premises.

Likewise, if you want to make alterations to the premises. Usually, the landlord and his surveyor need to give formal consent first.

Once the terms of the lease are agreed and our searches completed, you can proceed to completion, taking account of any rent free period you may have negotiated at the outset or during the process, to facilitate getting the premises ready before you open for business.