A commercial lease is one of the most important, and sometimes scary, documents a new business owner will ever sign.  They involve complex terms, financial risk, and obligations you may have never seen before.  The first commercial lease my company ever signed was for a total value of $2.5 million dollars over five years.  At the time, it scared me to death.

With careful planning, however, a commercial lease can be a tremendous asset to your business, and as always, speaking to qualified property lawyers is always a good idea.

Here’s a few things to watch out for:

• The Money. You’ll be paying rent at regular intervals so watch out for a few things that will appear in this part of your lease.
• Automatic rent increases. These are common in leases and can substantially affect your ability to pay (as well as the profitability of your business) over time.  Be careful to examine exactly how the rent increase will be calculated.   Try to anticipate the worst case scenarios and plan for them.  Be prepared to negotiate on this term, you do not have to accept it at face value.  Again, consulting with a competent property lawyer is a smart move.

The regulation of commercial real estate issues constitutes one of important objectives of the present-day Australian law. In order to understand the specifics of legal regulation of commercial real estate in Australia, it is essential to review the current trends that inevitably affect and determine the nature of such regulation.

According to Property lawyers as far as Australia is concerned, the key trends influencing upon the development of law in the field of commercial real estate in the country include foreign investment environment, retail property investment environment, substantial commercial real estate deals in Australia, etc.

In relation to the first factor, it needs to be pointed out that foreign investments, specifically from Singapore, China, Hong Kong, Malaysia and Canada, into the property market of Australia, constitutes the strongest determinant of luxury hotel assets, significant office assets and residential developments. Besides, offshore investors view Australian investments as a relatively secure option as compared to other global investment alternatives. Generally speaking, occupancy rates across the Australian market are high and rental income has been stable.