Is it good strategy to send last minute lease extensions?

[Travis Reed]

I am managing 3 commercial office tenants all with 2 year leases.  I'm not sure if this is considered "good business" but I was thinking of sending them their new updated lease/extension about 1-2 weeks prior to the end of their current lease. 1-2 weeks is not enough time for them to find a new place if they wanted to move. 

I guess my overall question is that it does not seem to be the landlord's responsibility to remind the tenant that their lease is about to expire so that they have adequite time to relocate if they were wanting to do so. 

Any thoughts on this or have better strategies? I want my tenants to of course stay as long as possible.

[Bill B.]

I assume you’re talking about huge companies with experience and lawyers? I mean obviously smaller companies would just bail leaving behind their mess and start somewhere new with a new company. 

This doesn’t seem like an ideal time to have a commercial vacancy. Make sure you can carry the empty property for at least 6-18 months and probably take a lower rent than the current tenant is paying. 

Maybe you get lucky and when you give them the short notice they say sweet we’ve been wanting to talk about lowering our rent obviously in today’s market. Instead of just bailing. Or “thanks for making it clear we should close up, it was questionable under the lower rent but now it’s clear. Feel free to keep what e leave behind in lieu of the last month’s rent.”

I can’t believe your current lease lets the tenant move out with no notice at the lease end. You might want to write your future leases with the requirement that you will send a renewal notice at 120 days and they must respond by 60 days so you can avoid months of vacancy. Good luck. 

Ps. I just thought of the fact that you won’t know if your tenants have already decided to move until they give you a hard no,  the day before the lease expires.  That is a poorly written lease to say the least. Get an expert to write the next one,], that’s a rookie mistake.