Lease Agreements Proposal for Real

Deal Coffee
Prepared for:

Real Deal Coffee

Prepared by:

Matthew Carlson, Legal Services, Real Deal Coffee

Date prepared:

November 13, 2014

Lease Agreements Proposal for Real Deal Coffee

Abstract
Lease Agreements Proposal for Real Deal Coffee
Prepared by: Matthew Carlson, Legal Services, Real Deal Coffee
Lease agreements are necessary for the expansion and growth of Real Deal Coffee. Properly
reviewed leases provide a safe and effective way to begin the process of implementing a new
storefront. This report examines the problematic detailed and individual nature of commercial
lease agreements and suggests improvements to make these documents more effective. This
recommendation report provides and overview of research done within the field of lease writing,
and then proposes a solution to the aforementioned problems.

Lease Agreements Proposal for Real Deal Coffee

Table of Contents
Executive Summary..4

Introduction...5

Research Methods.6

Results6

Conclusions7

Recommendation...9

References......10

Appendix....11

Lease Agreements Proposal for Real Deal Coffee

Executive Summary
Here at Real Deal Coffee, we take pride in our commitment to excellence. The high quality of
our products mirrors the top quality service we provide our customers and business partners.
Keeping our business performing at its peak requires every department to be innovative and
efficient.
Recently, there have been a number of complaints regarding our lease agreements with our
landlords. Every year, our legal services department is face with numerous amendments and
revisions to each individual lease. This creates both a stressful work environment for the
department and a potential financial pitfall. Our department thinks that by taking another look at
the framework we use for the various leases can help the company work more effectively, both
personally and financially.
Legal services have researched several options that can help reduce the stress on the department
and potentially save some money in the process. We conclude that by expanding our lease
agreement form to include more restrictions, option checklists, and comprehensive language,
Real Deal Coffee can expedite the lease negotiation process.
Based on this analysis, I have concluded that creating a single, comprehensive lease agreement to
fit the needs of any landlord and rental property. This will require an overhaul of our current
framework, but will be enable fast and efficient collaboration in the future.

Lease Agreements Proposal for Real Deal Coffee

Introduction
In 2013, Real Deal Coffee created sixteen new lease agreements for new store locations and
revised thirty lease agreements for previously established storefronts. The growth of the
company has put strain on the legal services department. Real Deal Coffee granted the legal
services department the opportunity to research and propose a plan that will allow legal services
to keep up with the increased business.

The Problem
The problem that with the current lease agreements is that each individual lease is written
independently, resulting in a substantial use of time and resources. These lease agreements
contain many similarities, only differing in minute ways. These problems are not unique to Real
Deal Coffee, either. Molly OBrien, director of legal services and portfolio at Caribou Coffee,
one of the largest coffee chains in the Midwest, agrees that the hardest part about working with
lease agreements is that each document is unique and hand tailored.

Research
I both researched scholarly articles and conducted a personal interview in order to compile this
report. The journals helped me find out what elements are essential in a lease agreement, and the
interview helped me focus on what might help alleviate the problems with the current lease
agreement system. While Molly OBrien could not show me a current lease for Caribou Coffee,
she assured me that the problem we are facing is also affecting other companies as well.

Lease Agreement or Agreements for Lease

A lease agreement, as provided by Alissia Sbrizzi, is a binding agreement between a landlord
and prospective tenant to grant and/or to accept a lease in the future. (1). Lease agreement is
important to define because there is a distinct difference between it and a lease. A lease
agreement is mostly used when there are terms and conditions to be filled before tenant may
enter the building (Sbrizzi 1).

Recommendations
I recommend the following in order to help create a lease agreement that will decrease the
amount of time spent on individual lease agreements:
1. Use clear and precise definitions and language.
2. Include restrictions, options, and conditional items in the lease
3. Create a single lease that includes all of the specific items Real Deal Coffee requires be in
every lease

Lease Agreements Proposal for Real Deal Coffee

Methods
In order to better understand the problem, I researched several areas of interest:
1. I looked at a sample commercial lease agreement in order to understand the framework of
a lease agreement.
2. I interviewed a Caribou Coffee employee who works in the legal department dealing with
their lease agreements.
a. OBrien, Molly. Interview Lease Agreements. Telephone interview. 3 Nov.
2014.
3. I reviewed scholarly sources dealing with lease writing and lease agreements.
a. Sbrizzi, Alissia. Matters to Consider When Negotiating an Agreement for Lease.
Issue brief. LexisNexis Academic. Web. 8 Nov. 2014.
b. Brown, Jeffrey N. "Use Provisions in Commercial Leases." Los Angeles County
Bar Association (2006): n. pag. LexisNexis Academic. Web. 9 Nov. 2014.
c. Meislik, Ira, and Dennis Horn. The Commercial Lease Formbook: Expert Tools
for Drafting and Negotiation. Chicago, IL: American Bar Association, Section of
Real Property Trust & Estate Law, 2010. Print.
4. I made my recommendation.

Results
In this section, I will present the results of my research. I cover the discovery of the problem, the
sources utilized to understand the problem, and the culmination of this knowledge to form my
conclusions.

Discovering the Problem

The problem was first brought to attention at the end of the 2013 calendar year. The number of
new lease agreements and lease amendments has grown from previous years. While reviewing
some of the lease agreements the legal services department provided, I noticed that they were all
very similar. Then, comparing them to a sample commercial lease provided online by National
Paralegal College, it became clear that Real Deal Coffee needed a new approach to the way we
deal with leases

Scholarly Research
In an interview with Molly OBrien, the director of legal services at Caribou Coffee, I drew
several important pieces of information:
1. The language and definitions used to draft a lease are very important. Clearly outlining
the definition and terms of a lease will help prevent any legal discrepancies from taking
place.
2. The hardest aspect of writing leases and lease agreements is simply that each is individual
and requires a large amount of time to review.
3. Negotiating only the specific terms regarding a property with the landlord will save on
time and resources for the company as a whole.

Lease Agreements Proposal for Real Deal Coffee

Alissia Sbrizzi wrote a briefing dedicated to items of concern regarding leases agreements. She
begins with defining the difference between a lease and a lease agreement, the latter being an
agreement for a tenant to rent a property at a future date (1). She goes further to explain that the
most important items for a lease to cover are statutory consents. This means that any changes
made to the property need to have been approved by the landlord. Most lease agreements will
require this to be in writing. Another important element of Sbrizzis article the lease formalities
as Sbrizzi calls them. These are the special conditions and terms that either party would want
included in the signed agreement (2). Lease formalities are where most of the company
standards would fall in a lease.
In The Commercial Lease Formbook, composed by Ira Meislik and Dennis Horn offer several
important ideas to think about when writing and negotiating lease agreements. They suggest
having optimal consistency in the lease agreement. This is important because many times a
landlord and a chain retail store, such as Real Deal Coffee, will work with national landlords.
The consistency reduces the amount of time and money needed for legal services to negotiate the
contracts. Another important feature of this text is its inclusion of multiple kinds of leases. One
that sticks out is known as the Killer lease. This type of lease favors the landlord at every step
of the way and intentionally uses pyramiding definitions and legal obfuscation to shift risks and
liabilities from the landlord to the tenant (Meislik & Horn 7).
Finally, Jeffrey Brown, in his article Use Provisions in Commercial Leases suggests that when
writing a lease, the writer should include provisions. This is to say that they should include
statements and conditions that will help protect the tenant and/or landlord if anything should go
wrong. Brown gives the example of a commercial tenant that was violating a lease agreement by
obtaining groceries from a provider other than the one provided in the lease. This pairs with what
Molly OBrien said in her interview. Caribou makes sure to specify what types of food, coffee,
and logos can be place in a rental property.

Conclusion
I conclude that the lease agreements for Real Deal Coffee are obsolete and therefore must
undergo a change. This change will help the company save time and money when setting up new
leases with prospective storefronts.
The interview with Molly OBrien is the most informative when it comes to gather information
needed to make a recommendation. She provides the support from another legal services
department, from a large competitor, that lease agreements are difficult to work with due to the
fact that each lease is different. She also provides support for Brown and Sbrizzi in that she give
validity to their claims regarding clearly defining terms and conditions (provisions and/or
formalities, respectively).
I find Sbrizzis article to be informative and straightforward. She poses information that helps
situate anyone researching the topic of lease agreements. She also provides detailed information
on what it is that the various parties involved with a lease should look for. This article is a great
place to start to formulate a recommendation for the problem Real Deal Coffee is facing.

Lease Agreements Proposal for Real Deal Coffee

Finally, Brown is further proof that clearly defined terms and conditions are essential to the
strength of a lease agreement. He poses that both landlords and tenants provide input and their
own provisions into the lease. This will help protect both parties, while enabling business to
commence. This pairs well with what Meislik and horn have to say about the killer landlord
lease. Both parties need to be cognizant of what exactly is going into the lease.

Lease Agreements Proposal for Real Deal Coffee

Recommendation
I recommend the Real Deal Coffee take the following steps in order to help prevent further
resource loss regarding lease agreements:
1. Use clear and precise definitions and language.
2. Include restrictions, options, and conditional items in the lease, in the form of a specified
provisions and formalities section
3. Create a single lease that includes all of the specific items Real Deal Coffee requires to be
in every lease
I suggest that Real Deal Coffee assign a team of legal service department members to look into
the various lease agreements we currently hold in attempts to combine the elements into one
framework document. This will prevent any instances from the past where a landlord or tenant
has an issue with the terms of a lease in that it will have a nationally used format or restrictions
section specifically identifying which elements of the lease pertain to the current situation.
I further suggest that there be included a Formalities/Provisions section in the lease. This will
allow both parties the opportunity to identify specific concerns and conditions they want met in
the lease. This section will be reviewed and agreed by both parties. With this section being one
of the only unique sections to each lease, it will greatly reduce the amount of time and money
needed to set up each lease agreement. A Formalities/Provisions section also will allow for the
customization of a nationally used lease, which allows for account specific details while still
being part of the same lease form as the rest of the chain stores.

Lease Agreements Proposal for Real Deal Coffee

References
Brown, Jeffrey N. "Use Provisions in Commercial Leases." Los Angeles County Bar
Association (2006): n. pag. LexisNexis Academic. Web. 9 Nov. 2014.
Meislik, Ira, and Dennis Horn. The Commercial Lease Formbook: Expert Tools for Drafting and
Negotiation. Chicago, IL: American Bar Association, Section of Real Property Trust &
Estate Law, 2010. Print.
OBrien, Molly. Interview Lease Agreements. Telephone interview. 3 Nov. 2014.
Sbrizzi, Alissia. Matters to Consider When Negotiating an Agreement for Lease. Issue brief.
LexisNexis Academic. Web. 8 Nov. 2014.

Lease Agreements Proposal for Real Deal Coffee

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Appendix
Interview Questions
Structural aspects:
1. What is the most common type of writing you use as a lawyer?
a. Briefs, requests, lease etc.
i. How and why are they important?
1. What do they do? How are they used?
2. What are the major elements in a lease?
3. What type of organization do you generally use in a lease?
4. Is there a particular style of writing you use?
a. Specific language? Objective/subjective? Pathos?
Cultural aspects:
1. What type of work do you do?
a. Job title, brief description, etc.
2. What types of documents do you usually deal with?
a. Legal forms, etc?
3. What are they used for?
4. What are the key features of these documents?
a. What makes them distinct?
5. What is the hardest part about dealing with this type of document?
6. What is goes into these documents?
a. How do you write and/or produce one?
7. Please describe the different elements that make these documents unique.
a. (From a paralegal / legal background)
8. What are unique to these documents regarding law, what makes them legally binding,
what are some pitfalls of these documents?
9. What are types of legal proceedings are hard to capture in legal writing?
a. Peoples actions, precedence, etc
10. What types of standards are applied to this type of writing?
a. State by state, region? Are there set guidelines for legal writing?
11. What are the major difficulties of legal writing?

Lease Agreements Proposal for Real Deal Coffee

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