I\u2019m about to sign a lease agreement for an office. Is there anything in the small print that I should particularly look out for?<\/b><\/p>\n
<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Leases are not exactly bedtime reading. It\u2019s tempting to scan the small print, assuming that the contents will be standard. So it\u2019s good that you\u2019re asking this question.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The first step is to make sure that you understand everything. The simpler and shorter the contract; the easier this will be. There\u2019s seldom any need for the multi-page contracts that SMEs are often faced with \u2013 at Regus, for example, we just use a simple one-page contract.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Second step is to use your imagination \u2013 not something one usually associates with reading legal documents. The purpose of this is to identify \u2018What if \u2026\u2019 situations.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n In my experience, the thing people most fear in leases is hidden charges, but inflexibility can actually be more of a problem. This is why your \u2018What ifs\u2019 are important. However good a business plan; reality rarely follows the dots exactly. Problems occur, economic circumstances change, and, of course, good news happens too \u2013 you win contracts, or are invited into a new project or market.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n All these things can change your need for people and therefore workspace. And you may find that your lease prevents you from carrying out your plans \u2013 either you\u2019re lumbered with too much space, or you\u2019re lumbered with too little and cannot take on new people, either permanently or temporarily.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n So rather than look out for specific pitfalls, try to think of everything that could happen to your business over the entire period of the lease \u2013 both good and bad \u2013 and consider whether the lease would accommodate that. If it wouldn\u2019t, then it may not be right for you.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I\u2019m about to sign a lease agreement for an office. Is there anything in the small print that I should<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":59750,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20,1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43515"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43515"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43515\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/59750"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43515"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43515"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43515"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}