This article is a follow-up instalment to Part One in this series, “Sui Generis: Draft Like You Mean It.” As further follow-up regarding tracking of the lifecycle of a commercial lease, Part Two addresses various negotiation events, strategies, desired outcomes and potentially low key disasters. The previous article talked about language nuances, Part Two deals with what happens when you talk about those things — how these items should be discussed and what positions are worth taking and which aren’t (the repetition of the word “talk” is deliberate, because it’s all about the talking to produce the results). Blacklines can only talk to each other for so long until actual humans need to verbally interface (well, at least until AI takes over).
While my aim has been to address both landlord and tenant interests, I realize that the slant is going to be tenant-interest because it’s usually the party that’s living in the landlord’s standard form world and has to sometimes get its nose bloodied in the negotiations ring, depending on covenant clout. Where a tenant gets to use its own standard form, landlord-sided readers can reverse some of this discourse to turn tables, as negotiation strategies can be used as double-edged swords and if you know your ops’ game … well, you know how to win at it.
