lease signing by both parties or not

Hi,

1. The agent said to sign the lease and give him 3 copies, he will give me the store keys, and then he will have the landlord sign one and mail it back to me like a week later.

2. I would rather and thought it would be this way;
That both the landlord and I sign the lease together at the same time and then I get the keys and a copy.

Which is wiser and is there flaws for doing what he wanted in option 1? Also should I only sign once and make 3 copies of that lease or sign 3 different times?

What is the best way to tell him I want to do option 2 not making it seem like I want to give him a hard time or anything?

thanks

 

I've signed hundreds of commercial leases and never had both parties present at the same time. You need to sign all three copies - and I would make a copy to keep until you get an fully executed copy back. I hope you had an attorney review the lease. Commercial leases heavily favor the landlord by default and it's extremely common (expected) to have changes made and riders attached. Simple changes to wording can have huge financial impacts. Even differences like "gross leasable" vs "gross leased" in calculating CAM charges.

 

Mjewel is right - experienced business people exchange documents like this all the time. When I started practicing law (too long ago), it was pretty common for many types of agreements to have a formal closing where all the documents were signed, but that rarely occurs now. Even then, commercial leases did not normally get signed simultaneously by both parties.

I'll also echo mjewel's warning that you should have an attorney review the lease. Virtually every clause in a standard lease is written in the way most favorable to the landlord and landlords fully expect that some of the more onerous clauses will be changed.

In addition, there are some provisions that are not contained in a form lease that may be important to you, such as an option to renew or a right of first refusal on adjacent space.

At the very least, you need to have someone explain some of the risks and financial obligations you are assuming when you accept the proffered lease without any changes.

 

Thank you both! Very informative explanations

 

This is the rare thread in DP legal where you are getting really good advice and no idiots have posted yet.

 

I agree with you