Commercial Property Management: Tenancy Schedule Tips, Tools & Tactics
The tenancy schedule is the tool of choice for a property manager or lease manager in a commercial or retail real estate investment. It is the leasing schedule that will keep the property manager updated on upcoming events and dates.
You will often find that the lease schedule is out of date, so if someone hands you such a document, treat it with the caution it deserves and review it thoroughly before acting on the information contained in it.
So let’s say you have a great tenure schedule that you know is totally accurate. I get a lot of questions about what I would like to see in a tenancy schedule. These are my top priorities:
- Tenant name details, lease agreement and full emergency contact details
- Lease identifier or suite reference from the property plan
- The area of the tenancy in m2 or ft2 (depending on your unit of measure)
- The % of tenant area to net leasable area of the building
- Rent $ per year, per month and per unit of measure (m2 or ft2)
- Lease start date
- Rental start date
- Lease End Date
- lease term
- Lease Option Term
- Anniversary dates and reminders for rental reviews, options, expirations, renewals, renewals and good obligations
- Exit charges for each tenant based on the area and the monthly charge
- Outgoing budget for the building
- Total property expense recoveries in currency and %
- Types of expenses to be charged to tenants
- Renter’s Insurance Obligations
- Details of rent guarantee or bonds withheld
- Provision for critical dates related to any material term or condition of the lease
- Detail of the maintenance obligation of the tenants
This list is not finite and you can add your own additional priorities; however, I would make sure that it is completely correct and keep it to the highest level of accuracy. When you do this, you can stay on top of important upcoming events that will affect the occupancy or rental of the property.
While you can buy ‘off-the-shelf’ software programs that display this information above, that can be quite expensive for commercial and retail property managers entering this type of property for the first time. The alternative is to create some simple spreadsheet containing the data; In saying that, it is essential that great care is taken to maintain the spreadsheet you create. Any mistake in the leasing schedule can destroy your landlord, your business, your tenant, your reputation, and the property. Accuracy is paramount.
