“The devil is in the details”. The answer may very well be in one of the provisions of your lease. Commercial leases can vary depending on if it is a standalone space or on a floor of a building with other spaces sharing common areas. At the risk of saying hindsight is 20/20, you should have gotten this clarified BEFORE you signed the lease.
My recommendation is for you to request a meeting with your landlord and show him the results of the measurements and request the reduction in rent. Follow that up with a letter documenting the meeting and the request. If the Landlord continues to deny you, then you will need to hire an attorney to review your lease, review the measurements and then hopefully will only need a letter to the landlord threatening litigation to get your rent reduced accordingly. However, the attorney may advise you after reading the lease that you have no legal recourse. Again, it really depends how the lease is written.
As far as the agent, you can file a complaint with the Department of Real Estate but proving fraud is difficult. You would have to have overwhelming evidence that the agent knowingly leased you the space at 2300 feet when in fact he KNEW it was only 2,000. Most DRE’s have limited manpower to investigate this and in the scheme of things this doesn’t rank as an extremely large fraud if in fact there is fraud.
Good Luck.
Commercial Real Estate, I Was Defrauded By The Leasing Agent. How Can I Report Him And Change My Lease?
I signed a lease for a certain square footage and a $1 per sq foot.
I questioned the size in the beginning and was told commercial measurements are different from residential, (I don’t know what I am talking about) they measure to the drip line and the guy measured again and was sure he was correct. I chose the place for the size and now I am struggling as I need about another 300 sq ft (3 months into the lease) I paid a commercial appraisor to remeasure the building and I am 300 sq ft short. I am paying for 2300 and only have 2000. The original leasing agent came back out and remeasured the building and said he was about right, the lease says approx. I asked to see his measurements and he said he would email them to me and now he will not return my calls or show me his measurements, but left a message saying the landlord will give me $100 off the rent each month thats it, or I can get out of my lease and move. I have spend $1,000′s of dollars on advertising, signs etc and if I move i do not have the money to spend another $10k on all this stuff. Is there anything I can do? Can I at least report the agent for fraud so he won’t screw someone else?
Thanks for your help
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June 18, 2009
June 18, 2009
Start by speaking to the agent’s Broker. If you don’t get satisfaction, find your state realtor board an file a complaint.
