Legal Question in Business Law in New York

Mobile Business Commercial Property Access

Hello,

I own a small Mobile Automotive repair Business registered in the State of New York and fully insured. My question involves access to commercial property. I approached the owners of a property where I previously worked, due to the number of vehicles and potential customers, to obtain permission to perform very limited repairs on the premises. The position taken by property management was that I would have to pay a lease, lease space or pay a monthly fee. This is new territory for me since my business is mainly at the customer's home, apartment or Condo complex. Is it customary for mobile businesses to pay commerical property management/owners a fee or lease payment, even though technically no space is being utilized or for limited time? The vehicles are already there and I would be serving the tenants at their request. I doubt that Safelite Auto glass pays a lease payment for windshields replaced at parking lots. It appears that they are more interested in making money off of my potential ability to make money even though my time at the location is temporary. Do I have any legal recourse to conduct business on commercial property or would I need express permission to do so? What is my best course of action?


Asked on 12/19/06, 3:20 pm

1 Answer from Attorneys
John Friedman Law Office of John K. Friedman

Re: Mobile Business Commercial Property Access

Property owners have the right to exclude from their property those they don't wish to grant access to so long as the basis of their wish is not to engage in illegal discrimination. Therefore, if the property owner doesn't wish to permit you entry you have no recourse. Moreover, because you would be doing potentially hazardous work on the owner's property, such owner is well advised to insist that you enter into a license agreement before you enter its property to do work, and, in that agreement, to require you to indemnify and hold harmless the property owner from any costs, expenses, etc., that might arise as a result of your doing the work on its property.

All that said, this is not either esoteric or complicated, and any lawyer with a modicum of relevant experience should be able to negotiate this for you quickly. Indeed, it may turn out the property owner has a preferred form of license to begin with.

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Answered on 12/19/06, 3:42 pm


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