Struggling tenants sometimes must prioritize which creditors to pay each month. If they think you'll put up with late rent, they may put you at the bottom of the list. If you don't want to lose the tenant for some reason—for example, the loss will upset the tenant mix or co-tenancy rights of the other tenants at your center or you're having trouble leasing up your office building—you may be tempted not to take any action the first couple of times that the tenant is late with its rent and hope that it'll start paying on time again.

Rent abatement clauses spell out the circumstances under which tenants are entitled to withhold rent. But if you don't draft them carefully, you may overlook specific items that can affect you later if the tenant exercises its right. Here are four Dos and Don'ts to follow to avoid omitting commonly overlooked details. Ask your attorney about including the provisions below in the rent abatement clause in your lease.

Commercial real estate law has been applied largely the same way for hundreds of years, since feudal times. But a recent opinion by the Court of Appeals of New York, regarding a dispute between a Manhattan movie theater tenant and the owner of the building where it rented space for its multiplex cinema, has dramatically changed the amount of leeway owners will have when making unauthorized changes to tenant-occupied space.