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Amending your lease with a tenant can work in your favor if you can remove certain portions that would've worked against you if exercised by the tenant. But keep in mind that removing a clause dealing with one right doesn't make a related right invalid. You must expressly delete each provision when amending the lease. Otherwise, the provisions are still in effect.

If your tenant agreed to be accountable for any ADA infraction that’s discovered in its space in the future, you could still be on the hook for the same violation. But you can make sure that you find out about the violation while there’s still time for you to correct it if your tenant hasn’t, by requiring the tenant to inform you within 10 days of receiving an ADA notice.

Sometimes, leasing space to a tenant that is not a U.S. business or individual is profitable and the right choice for your property. But there are several key considerations that need to be addressed ahead of time in order for you to be protected in the event that things don’t work out in this type of scenario. Make sure that before you sign a lease with a foreign tenant you discuss with your attorney:

Most leases include a “cure period” during which a tenant has the opportunity to fix a problem that, if left unchanged, would be considered a breach of that lease. If you’ve allowed your tenant to have a cure period, you might be under the impression that it’s required to completely fix whatever is wrong. But that’s not always the case.

Square footage and dimensions can easily become the focus of a dispute, which is why some owners try to keep them out of a lease or attached floor plans. If you have to include square footage or dimensions in certain circumstances—for example, if you’re dealing with a highly desirable prospective tenant that demands this inclusion, or the fixed rent or a rent escalation is governed by a formula that includes the square footage number, make protective changes to two standard lease clauses.

The right to be the only tenant in a shopping center or mall that sells a certain type of product or operates a certain type of business is highly valuable—and, therefore, very strategically negotiated. If you give a tenant this right (in the exclusive use clause of its lease) it can contribute greatly to a tenant’s success at your center or mall, benefitting you too.

You may have a “wish list” for items you would like to include in your lease with a prospective tenant, but be careful not to overdo it. Making blatantly unfair requests during negotiations can offend tenants or give them the impression that you won’t be realistic with them if an issue arises once the lease begins. Plus, big box tenants or those with a lot of bargaining power are more likely to balk at requests for things that are too owner friendly, but continue negotiations knowing they will get a deal they can live with.

If you tend to lease space to a lot of partnership and corporate tenants, you could be in for a rude awakening when you find out that you can’t enforce a lease with one of those corporate tenants. If a business hasn’t taken the necessary partnership or corporate actions to allow it to enter into a lease, you could end up having trouble enforcing the lease later.

Many office building and shopping center owners build remedies into their agreements so they can enforce the lease terms they’ve negotiated with their tenants. But even though an owner’s remedies can redress many situations, it still behooves you to give your tenant a strong incentive to stick to the lease terms in the first place—especially for big-ticket obligations like paying rent.

Q: A lease deal I’ve been working on with a tenant has taken more time that I anticipated. I’ll be reviewing the final document soon, and I don’t want any further delays. If there’s a minor mistake in the final copy of the lease, is it safe to make a handwritten correction for the sake of moving things along?