Saturday, September 12, 2009

Medical Office Rent: The Best Choice

By Todd McClain

Very often, the relocation of a medical office, and the subsequent negotiation and execution of a new lease, follows a well-defined pattern. After a certain amount of searching, one day a realtor shows you the perfect space, in the perfect location, and assures you that the lease will need to be signed as quickly as possible if you are not to lose the space to one of your competitors.

Health care providers create special leasing issues. Among other things, health care providers work with chemicals, they produce biomedical waste, their patients have a greater need for privacy and are more likely than the general public to be disabled. For both the landlord and the tenant, the boilerplate language in most general office and retail leases fails to address the special characteristics of medical tenants. This article generally identifies some of the most common inadequacies.

While there is no substitute for the representation of experienced legal counsel when entering into a new medical office lease, understanding some of the most significant provisions in a lease will serve you well when undertaking the initial review of a "form" lease with which your broker has presented to you. Having a little understanding of the implications of the key legal provisions can save you a lot of money in the long run. The following is the first part of a brief checklist of some of the most commonly encountered provisions and a brief explanation of the potential implications of each.

Though, as a practical matter, the tenant's use may trigger the need for ADA compliance, the tenant will want to avoid lease language obligating the tenant to pay any of the costs that the landlord incurs to bring the building into compliance with ADA. While medical tenants generally bear the responsibility for finishing the lease premises consistently with the ADA, tenants will want to consider excluding the general building ADA compliance charges from the list of expenses passed through to the tenant.

The underlying problem is fairly simple. In the typical medical office lease, the landlord undertakes the construction of certain improvements in the premises prior to turning the space over to the tenant for occupancy. As a new tenant, you expect to walk into your finished office, move in your furniture, and then begin paying rent on the day you open for business. All too often, however, the lease provides for a fixed date on which rent will commence to be payable and there is no provision for delaying that date if completion of the landlord's work is delayed.

Yet health care providers need to limit the landlord's access to examining rooms and other areas during certain hours of the day. Generally, medical tenants will seek to place limitations on the landlord's reentry rights. This can be done through designating certain privacy areas on a diagram showing the finished lease premises

Virtually all leases have provisions obligating the tenant to behave in a way which prevents mechanics liens from attaching to the property. These provisions should be reviewed to verify consistency with tenant control of the finishing At the end of the lease, the landlord is more likely to demolish the specialized health care tenant finish than with more classic office or retail tenant finish.

As health care providers seek to become increasingly convenient to their patients, they will continue to migrate to general office and storefront retail space. Both landlords and medical tenants need to work to ensure that their leases fit these special situations

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