A lease is a long financial commitment dressed up as paperwork. Five years on a retail site, with options, outgoings and a personal guarantee attached, is often a bigger decision than the business that signs it realises. We read leases for what they will cost you in year four, not just what they say on page one.
Leasing
We draft, review and negotiate leases and sub-leases across commercial, retail, shopping centre and residential property — acting for landlords and tenants alike. That includes the parts people skim: rent review mechanisms, outgoings and recoverable costs, make-good obligations at the end of term, assignment and subletting, options to renew, and personal guarantees or bank guarantees.
Retail leases in Victoria carry additional protections under the Retail Leases Act 2003 — disclosure statements, restrictions on what outgoings can be recovered, and minimum terms. Whether your lease is caught by that Act changes the negotiation completely, and it is one of the first things we check.
Disputes
- Rent arrears, breach notices and termination
- Repair, maintenance and make-good disagreements
- Outgoings and rent review challenges
- Victorian Small Business Commission mediations and applications
- VCAT proceedings, including retail tenancy disputes
Before you sign
The cheapest time to fix a lease is before it is executed. Send us the draft and a short note about your plans for the site — how long you expect to stay, whether you might sell the business, what fit-out you are putting in — and we will tell you which clauses are standard, which are aggressive, and which are worth spending negotiating capital on.
Common questions
The landlord says the lease is “standard” and non-negotiable. Is it?
Rarely. “Standard” usually means “drafted by the landlord’s lawyer in the landlord’s favour”. Even where the commercial terms are genuinely fixed, there are often mechanical clauses — make-good scope, guarantee amounts, assignment consent — that a landlord will move on rather than lose a tenant.
What is “make good” and why does it matter?
Make good is your obligation to return the premises to an agreed condition at the end of the lease. Drafted loosely, it can require stripping out a fit-out you paid for and restoring things that were never yours — a five-figure surprise at the exact moment you are moving. It should be defined precisely, ideally against a photographic condition report taken at handover.
Am I personally liable if the business cannot pay?
If you signed a personal guarantee, generally yes — and guarantees often survive the sale of the business unless they are properly released on assignment. This is one of the most important clauses in the document and one of the least read.