Legal Question in Real Estate Law in California
Commercial
when is a commercial agreement binding? My dad signed the lease on 12/26/08 - the landlord signed on 01/19/09 - we just got the lease and now the real estate person is telling us that what is in the shop is going to be removed. the lease states AS IS. What do you think?
1 Answer from Attorneys
Re: Commercial
The term "as is" normally refers to the seller not making any improvements to the property, i.e., the buyer takes the property in the physical condlition that it is in without the right to demand any repairs, even those the buyer would not have noticed on inspection. I do not do commerical leases so I do not know if in those types of leases it also means that items not affixed to the structure remain. Normally only items that are secured to the walls remain behind.
Your father has to find out from a commerical real estate agent what the terms mean in commerical leases. He then must consider if he had agreed to pay the rent agreed upon because those items were going to remain and if that was a reasonable assumption. He then needs to discuss that with the landlord and convince him that he thought the lease included the use of those items and see if they can renegoiate the lease terms. If there is an honest misunderstanding as to what was being leased [look at the rental agreement to see what it says] then there was not a meeting of the minds and perhaps no binding agreement. What did your real estate agent tell your father about those items before he signed the lease?