Lease Review prior to signing
Before signing your commercial lease
Commercial leases are contracts that bind companies for significant periods of time and rental costs are usually one of a company’s top three operating expenses. Yet year after year, companies continue to sign commercial leases without the benefits of a thorough due diligence process.
Beware of clause interpretation
A commercial real estate broker will no doubt be able to find premises that meet your expectations and negotiate a competitive rental rate on your behalf. Your legal counsel, in turn, will review the lease (and possibly even draft it) to ensure your operational, competitive and legal interests are protected. However, only an expert with lease audit experience can predict how a landlord will interpret the wording of a specific lease and bill the additional rent charges. A lease audit expert can also suggest amendments to the wording of certain lease clauses in order to reduce a tenant’s financial exposure and make it impossible for a landlord to interpret lease clauses in a manner that will prove detrimental to the tenant.
A lease examination that leads to large savings
Before signing a costly contract that could bind your company for a significant period of time, consider having MJS review your commercial lease. Not only is this a great governance practice, but such a review could also save you hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Expert Testimony
Conflicts between you and your landlord?
Conflicts between companies that lease commercial space and landlords are not as rare as one might think. Such disputes, moreover, usually concern the interpretation of clauses with a potential impact on the rental payments billed to a tenant. In such a context, MJS can act as an expert witness. Our extensive knowledge of the commercial real estate industry, vast experience in lease and other negotiations, finely-honed communication skills and an unmatched expertise in the interpretation of lease clauses with a financial impact make MJS the ideal partner for settling conflicts, whether it be through a negotiation, arbitration or legal court process.
Financial Due Diligence
Buying or selling a commercial building?
Martin Santerre, who has a CPA, CA designation, has been involved in real estate transactions with total sales proceeds in excess of 2 billion dollars over the span of his career thus far. MJS is thus extremely well-qualified to assist potential purchasers looking to perform a due diligence of the financial data (and more specifically, the revenues and expenses) associated with a specific building. MJS can also help vendors prepare their “data room” before putting a property on the market, and can even take on a representative or agent’s role with prospective buyers. MJS’ expertise, moreover, is not limited to commercial buildings (office, retail, industrial) but rather, includes multi-residential facilities and retirement residences.
Lease Abstracts
To simplify the management of your leases
Drafting highly effective and thorough lease abstracts requires an adequate dosage of extensive knowledge of leases, advanced analytical and modeling skills, a flair for concise and clear written communications, an understanding of users’ needs and the ability to clearly establish the importance and priority of different commercial lease clauses. MJS can do all this and more. Be it for just one major lease or for an extensive lease portfolio, our proven and efficient processes are designed to meet your specific needs.
Quantum of Claims
Professional support to file claims
Having successfully executed countless lease audit mandates, all of which involved the calculation and production of quantum of claims against landlords, MJS’ reputation in this regard is well established. This specific expertise is transferrable to other real estate sectors, such as determining the quantum for an insurance claim or a claim for damages against a third party. Whether a loss is physical or operational, MJS can work with you to calculate, establish and document an optimal and credible quantum of claim in support of a monetary compensation in line with your expectations.
Training and Conferences
Tailored to your business
MJS has extensive experience training real estate department employees for clients in various industries or for the Quebec CPA Order. The degree of satisfaction expressed by our clients with these training sessions is simply exceptional. We are putting our 35 years of practice to work for our clients through the education of their human resources. As their employees acquire new knowledge, improve their overall understanding of the industry, develop a greater sense of loyalty towards their employer and strive to surpass expectations, they are ensuring that our clients’ training investment generates substantial rental cost savings. Banking on our vast experience, we will cooperate with your team to develop training sessions that are specifically adapted to your employees’ needs and deliver these in a dynamic environment replete with real-life examples and tasty anecdotes.
MJS has also spoken at conferences of professional organizations or real estate groups. Contact us to learn more about how we can prepare and deliver talks on the real estate industry and more specifically, the administration and audit of commercial leases.
