What Happens If I Break a Commercial Lease Early in Nevada?

What you actually owe

When a tenant abandons a Nevada commercial lease, the landlord can typically claim:

• Unpaid rent through the date of abandonment
• Future rent as it comes due, minus rent from a replacement tenant
• Re-letting costs: brokerage commissions, tenant improvements, free rent concessions
• Repair costs beyond ordinary wear
• Late fees, interest, and attorney's fees if the lease provides them

The landlord's duty to mitigate

Nevada generally requires commercial landlords to make reasonable efforts to re-let after a tenant abandons — they cannot simply leave the space empty for three years and bill you. But 'reasonable' is a low bar: listing the space with a broker at market rate usually satisfies it. In a soft Las Vegas submarket, re-letting can take many months, and that gap is your bill.

The personal guarantee changes everything

If you signed a personal guarantee, closing the business does not end the debt. The landlord can pursue you personally for the full deficiency. This is why guarantee terms — caps, burn-offs, good-guy clauses — matter so much at signing. If you are already past that point, the guarantee is the landlord's main leverage in negotiating a buyout, and your main reason to negotiate rather than abandon.

Better exits than abandonment

In rough order of cost, cheapest first:

• Exercise a termination option if your lease has one
• Negotiate a buyout — often two to six months of rent, plus the guarantee released
• Assign the lease to a buyer of your business (landlord consent usually required)
• Sublease the space for the remaining term
• Surrender under a 'good guy' guarantee if you negotiated one
• Abandon and litigate — the most expensive path

When you can leave without owing

Some exits are legally clean: the landlord's material breach (failure to provide services the lease requires, constructive eviction), a condemnation or casualty clause triggered by damage to the building, or an express early-termination right. Constructive eviction is a high bar — you generally must show the premises became unusable and that you gave the landlord notice and a chance to fix it before leaving.

How to negotiate the exit

Landlords settle because vacancy is expensive and lawsuits are slow. Bring the landlord a solution, not just a problem: a replacement tenant, a lump-sum buyout, or a short payout schedule. Get any deal in a written termination agreement that expressly releases the guarantee and resolves all claims — a handshake surrender leaves the lease alive.