Las Vegas · Nevada

    Commercial Leasing

    Free consultation. You will speak with Chris directly.

    The document on your desk is the deal

    Chris Sullivan Law drafts, reviews and negotiates commercial leases in Las Vegas, for the moment when you are holding an LOI or a draft lease and have to decide what to sign.

    Commercial leasing work usually starts the same way. A broker sends over a letter of intent, or the landlord's leasing agent emails a long form lease with a signature block at the end, and you have a few days to decide whether to sign it, mark it up, or walk away from the space. That is the point to put the document in front of a real estate attorney, because once it is signed the lease is the deal. What it says about rent, charges, term, repairs and your obligations is what governs for the length of the term, no matter what was said during the tour.

    Chris Sullivan Law handles commercial lease drafting, review and negotiation for office, retail and industrial space. The work is the document itself: reading what the lease actually obligates you to do and to pay, telling you plainly which terms matter and which ones only look alarming, and negotiating the language that does not work for you before it becomes binding.

    Representing landlords and tenants alike

    The firm works both sides of a commercial lease: drafting the lease a landlord puts in front of tenants, and reading and negotiating the one a tenant has been handed.

    For a building owner, the lease is an operating document. It has to recover operating expenses the way the property is actually run, set the term and the escalations you intend, control who ends up occupying the space through the assignment and subletting clauses, and put any guaranty in a form that will hold. Chris Sullivan Law drafts commercial leases for landlords of office, retail and industrial property, and negotiates them when a tenant's counsel comes back with a markup.

    When you are the one being handed the lease

    A tenant is almost always reading a document drafted entirely by the other side, and the obligations in it run one direction. The job there is to find out what the space really costs, what you are responsible for maintaining and restoring, what happens if the business grows or changes, and what personal exposure you are being asked to accept — and then to negotiate those points while you still have leverage, which is before you sign.

    The clauses that set your real occupancy cost

    Base rent is rarely the whole cost of a space. CAM and operating expenses, term and escalations, assignment rights and personal guaranties are usually where a commercial lease decides what you pay.

    A lease review that only checks the rate and the square footage misses most of the exposure. The money moves in the definitions: what the landlord is allowed to include in common area maintenance and operating expenses, how your share is calculated and reconciled, how rent steps up over the years, who pays for the build-out and on what schedule, whether you may assign the lease or sublease the space if the business changes, and whether someone signs personally behind the entity. Chris Sullivan Law negotiates those provisions directly — rent, CAM charges, term, assignment and guaranties — rather than circling the whole document with generic comments.

    • Operating expense and CAM definitions decide what you pay beyond base rent.
    • Rent escalation and renewal language determine the cost of the back half of the term.
    • Build-out and delivery terms set who performs the work and who funds it.
    • Assignment and sublease provisions control your options if the business changes or sells.
    • Personal guaranties can often be limited in amount, in duration, or in scope.
    • Default, notice and repair clauses decide what each side can do when something goes wrong.

    Each of these is drafted language, which means each of them is negotiable language. The point of getting a lawyer into the file at draft stage is to fix them on paper while both sides still want the deal to close.

    Send the lease and get a direct read

    Call Chris Sullivan Law at (702) 471-0112, describe the deal and send the lease or LOI, and get a straight read on what the document does and what to ask for before signing.

    The office is at 8363 W. Sunset Rd., Suite 100, Las Vegas, NV 89113, and the firm handles commercial lease drafting, review and negotiation for property in Las Vegas, Henderson, Summerlin and throughout Nevada. Bring the document, any letter of intent or broker correspondence, and your deadline, because timing in a lease negotiation is part of the strategy.

    Whether you are a tenant deciding what to sign or an owner who needs a lease drafted for your building, the fastest way forward is a short call and a look at the file. Call (702) 471-0112 to schedule a consultation.

    Frequently Asked Questions

    I was handed the landlord's standard lease. Is it actually negotiable?
    Yes. A landlord's "standard" form is a starting position drafted entirely by the landlord's side, and it reads that way: the obligations run one direction and the discretion runs the other. What actually gets changed depends on the space, the market and how badly each side wants the deal, but the document itself is not fixed, and tenants who sign it untouched usually do so because nobody told them it was open. Chris Sullivan Law reviews commercial leases, marks up the terms that do not work, and negotiates the language with the other side before anything is signed.
    Which lease clauses decide the real cost of the space?
    Rarely the base rent alone. The clauses that move money are the ones defining what else you pay and for how long: how operating expenses and CAM are defined and billed, how rent escalates over the term, how long the term runs and what the renewal rights say, what happens to improvements and build-out costs, whether you can assign or sublease if the business changes, and whether anyone signs a personal guaranty. Chris Sullivan Law reads commercial leases for exactly these terms — rent, CAM charges, term, assignment and guaranties — and negotiates the ones carrying real exposure rather than papering over the whole document.
    What is CAM, and how do I keep operating expenses from running away from me?
    CAM is common area maintenance — the tenant's share of what it costs the landlord to run the property, usually billed on top of base rent and reconciled after the year closes. The exposure is not the concept, it is the definition: what categories the landlord is allowed to put into the pool, how your share is calculated, whether capital work and management fees get included, and whether you can audit the reconciliation. Those are drafting questions, and they are negotiable. Chris Sullivan Law reviews and negotiates CAM and operating-expense language so you know what you are agreeing to pay before the first reconciliation statement arrives.
    The landlord wants a personal guaranty. Can I limit it?
    Often, yes — the question is usually how much guaranty, not whether. A guaranty that your entity's lease obligations are backed personally can be negotiated on scope and on duration: capped at a stated amount, limited to a set number of months of rent, stepped down or released after a period of performance, or narrowed so it covers only certain obligations. Which of those the landlord will accept depends on the deal, but a guaranty handed to you in its broadest form is a starting draft. Chris Sullivan Law negotiates guaranty language as part of commercial lease work for tenants, and drafts it for landlords who need the obligation to hold.
    Who should pay for the build-out, and how does that get written into the lease?
    That is a negotiated business term, and the lease has to say so in detail. The points that matter are who performs the work, who pays and up to what amount, what happens if the work runs over, when the allowance gets funded, what condition the space is delivered in, when rent starts relative to completion, and what you may or must remove at the end of the term. A handshake about the landlord "taking care of the build-out" is worth very little once it is not in the document. Chris Sullivan Law gets build-out and delivery terms written into the lease in language that can actually be enforced.
    Can I get out early, assign the lease, or sublease the space?
    Only to the extent the lease lets you, which is why assignment and subletting language deserves attention at signing rather than three years later when you are selling the business or outgrowing the space. The common questions are whether the landlord's consent can be withheld for any reason or only a reasonable one, whether a sale of your company counts as an assignment, whether you stay on the hook after transferring, and whether the landlord can recapture the space or take the profit on a sublease. Chris Sullivan Law negotiates assignment, sublease and transfer provisions for tenants and drafts them for landlords.
    I'm the landlord — should I use my own form lease or have one drafted?
    If you own the building, the lease is your most important operating document, and a form pulled off the internet or carried over from a different property usually does not match how you actually run the place. A lease drafted for your property can define operating expenses the way you recover them, set the term and escalations you want, control assignment and subleasing, and put the guaranty in a form that holds. Chris Sullivan Law drafts commercial leases for landlords of office, retail and industrial property, and negotiates them when a tenant's counsel comes back with a markup.
    What happens if the tenant stops paying or the landlord won't make repairs?
    Whatever the lease says happens. Default, notice, cure periods, late charges, repair and maintenance obligations and remedies are all written into the document, and when a problem arrives everyone turns to those clauses first. That is precisely why they matter at drafting: a landlord wants a clean default and remedy structure, and a tenant wants repair obligations, response times and cure rights that are actually workable. Having those provisions read and negotiated before signing is the cheapest point in the relationship to fix them.

    Ready to discuss your case?

    A short phone call is usually enough to tell. Free consultation.