Commercial and Retail Leasing

Our leasing lawyers are ready for your call and at your service; whether you are a landlord of a large or small complex, an individual landlord or a tenant looking to enter into a commercial lease for a small shop.

Commercial leasing can generally be divided into 2 main categories:

  1. General commercial leases; and
  2. Commercial leases captured under the Retail Shop Leases Act.

Executing commercial leases is a decision that should not be made lightly as the lease can have a far-reaching impact on a number of issues including your personal liability, the value of your business or even impose excessively onerous obligations on you at the end of the lease.

General commercial leases

Leases that fall into this this category are most commonly:

  • Office leases
  • Warehouse or factory leases
  • Stand-alone commercial land leases
  • Shop leases in stand-alone shop or shops in small shopping centres (less than 5 shops)
  • Leases exempt from regulation under the Retail Shop Leases Act

General commercial leases will document the relationship between the landlord and tenant and can be as simple or as detailed as the parties agree. Our expert leasing lawyers often see parties try to take the cheaper route of documenting a general commercial lease by using an REIQ Commercial Tenancy Agreement prepared by a real estate leasing agent. We strongly recommend against using these documents as the content is not thorough enough to state the parties’ obligations and rights, as well as being highly deficient in dispute resolution processes.

General commercial leases are still highly regulated and that is done under the Property Law Act, especially with respect to termination, notices of default and other like rights under the leases. These requirements must be adhered to in enforcing your rights or compelling the other party to comply with their obligations under the lease.  A failure to adhere to these requirements may result in a breach of the lease or other action such as an unlawful termination of a lease.  We would ensure that you do not fall into this trap.

Retail Shop Leases

Many commercial leases in Queensland are captured by the particular requirements of the Retail Shop Leases Act 1994 (Qld). The Retail Shop Lease Act is a piece of legislation that imposes on both landlords and tenants certain requirements both prior to entering into a retail shop lease and within the terms of the lease itself.

A lease is captured by the Retail Shop Leases Act in two circumstances:

  1. It is a premises within a Retail Shopping Centre (5 or more retail shops in one centre); or
  2. The business being operated from the premises is a Retail Business as defined under the Retail Shop Leases Regulations 2016(Qld).

All Retail Shop Leases have requirement and advice obligations on each party. Both the landlord and the tenant must provide signed and accurate disclosure to each other prior to signing the lease. In addition to those disclosure the tenant must also obtain legal and financial advice in relation to the lease documents and reports signed off by the Lawyer and Accountant providing the advice.

If you are looking to lease out your commercial property or enter into a general commercial or retail shop lease for your business, then call the leasing lawyers at Evolution Legal to assist you through the mine field that commercial and retail leasing can be.