Legal Question in Business Law in California

Re: Can a lease dictate prices a business charges for services?

I have no idea what your lease agreement says - no lawyer can advise you without reading it - but a pro se litigant in court is not something you want to be.

Re: Can a lease dictate prices a business charges for services?

If a tenant enters into a lease with restrictive terms, he can not be heard to bitch and moan about it later. If you're not even the tenant, you sure don't have standing to interfere in their agreement. If you think you do, then by all means, research the law and present your case, at the risk of a malicious prosecution countersuit.

Re: Can a lease dictate prices a business charges for services?

You should hire an attorney.

Best,

Daniel Bakondi, Esq.

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Re: Can a lease dictate prices a business charges for services?

The answer to the question posed by your first sentence is "Yes."

There would have to be two minor qualifications to that "yes" answer. The first is that the agreement cannot violate antitrust laws. If we are talking about Chevron leasing a refinery to Exxon and telling them not to resell products to Shell, maybe that would be illegal. The second limitation on the right to contract freely that might apply is that the agreement cannot restrict the lessee (or whatever) from doing business with a protected class, such as racial minorities or members of certain ethnic or religious groups.

The arrangement you describe closely resembles some franchise agreements. California, as do other states, regulates the business of franchising, and if this deal falls under the definition of a franchise, there could be additional restrictions on what the lessor or franchisor may demand of the lessee or franchisee. However, the basic concept of franchising does provide for a large amount of freedom to design the contract as the parties wish, and the regulations have to do mainly with disclosure rather than inherent limits of the deal terms.

I am somewhat doubtful that a person in your position would have standing to sue, unless perhaps you are a member of a disadvantaged class such as an ethnic minority against which the agreement discriminates. In other situations, such as a franchising law violation, the right to sue might be reserved for the attorney general alone, or possibly the franchisee, but probably not a bystander.