Real Estate Leasing and Lease Related Services

We are highly experienced with real estate leasing, including but not limited to commercial leases for office buildings, shopping centers, and industrial property. We represent both landlords and tenants in the negotiation and drafting of leases. We also can help clients address lease dispute and default situations. We regularly appear in court on eviction matters, and have represented both landlords and tenants in such cases.

Sample cases
• Rewrote the standard lease form for one of Central Ohio’s largest shopping center developers.
• Analyzed for and wrote substantial modernizations to the standard lease form used by a national developer of office buildings.
• Negotiation and drafting of numerous shopping center leases between commercial landlords and commercial tenants.
• Negotiated a 65 year ground lease for one of the largest buildings in downtown Indianapolis
• Obtained a substantial settlement for a restaurant tenant of a shopping center in Pickerington, Ohio when the center landlord attempted to use a “relocation clause” in the lease to force the tenant to close.
• Advised the owner of an apartment complex on revisions to the standard residential lease form for the complex to comply with the Ohio-Landlord Tenant Act and with Fair Housing laws.
• Forestalled for nine months a lender’s attempts to evict tenants of a luxury property in Dublin, Ohio from vacating after their landlord defaulted on the mortgage and a foreclosure resulted unbeknownst to the tenants.

Lease Language
Residential Lease – a lease to a consumer for dwelling purposes. Ohio law sets standards for residential leases in the Ohio Landlord-Tenant Act. A lawyer can help both tenants and landlords understand their rights and obligations.
Triple Net Lease – a type of commercial lease under which the tenant pays a base rent and also pays for real estate taxes, insurance, and common area maintenance.
Option to Renew – a pre-agreed right for a tenant to extend the term, at a rent provided for in the option language.
First Refusal – promise by a landlord to give an exisiting tenant a last chance to lease a vacant space in the building, before someone else takes it.