What language was added to your lease in 2024?

[Stuart Udis]

As I am sure is the case with many investors, my residential and commercial leases continue to evolve. Changes to local landlord/tenant laws and new situations involving tenants lead to these annual updates. What changes did others incorporate into their leases that were influenced by this years tenant interactions? I thought this could be a good way to take inventory of other situations landlords experienced and make proactive updates to our leases without having to first experience the same fact pattern. If you are going to share lease edits  brought on by local landlord tenant legislation updates make sure to include the location but I suspect edits influenced by tenant interaction will be most helpful to those who read these forums. Here's one of mine:

I acquired a building towards the middle of the year with an existing commercial tenant. The lease language requires the interior of the building to heat to 70 degrees. The tenant frequently informs me the interior temperature only reaches 68 degrees. However the thermostat is mounted  to the wall a few feet from the front door in a highly accessed retail store where the door is constantly opened. If not for the location of the thermostat the temperature would likely be satisfactory. Fortunately this isn't a situation that has impacted my relationship with this particular tenant. In fact we are working towards a 5 year extension on the existing lease. However there are tenants out there who look to exploit technicalities in leases and that is one of the reasons  why lease language is so important.  Moving forward in my  commercial leases I will now include language making the placement of thermostats the landlords decision with additional language prohibiting the relocation.