Rent obligation for commercial space.

We are a skin laser clinic located in a mall in Boise, Idaho. We signed a year contract with an option to renew 9 more years. We are being asked to pay back rent for months we had not yet opened, because the lease states that the lease would commence 60 days from the date the landlord notifies the tenant in writing that the Landlord's construction obligations respecing the premises have been fulfilled and that the preimises are ready for occupancy.

The commencement letter was dated in June 2000. The space had never been built out so we were busy getting it ready for occupancy. It was finally completed in Feb 2001. The landlord is now asking us to pay back rent from August 2000 (60 days from the date the landlord notified us that their obligations had been fulfilled.)

We did not understand this language in the contract when we signed it. Now we are being asked to opay $19,000 in back rent, which was never billed to us until we had moved in February 2001.

This is space they had never collected rent on since they opened the mall in 1987. Why would they expect us to pay rent on space that we had not yet moved into? We paid a fortune in tenant improvements to move in and were trying very hard to get in asap.

Do we have any recourse or are we screwed? Is there any way we can get out of paying it? There were delays on their part that prevented us from moving in in a timely manner. They totally blind sided us.

[HomeGuru]

1. You should have had an attorney review the lease for you.
2. If you did not understand the language in the lease, you should have asked L.
3. Commercial leases do not follow the L/T laws that apply to residential real estate property.
4. It appears that the obligation of L was to provide you shell or loft space with maybe some improvements. You were basically doing the TI on your own and within your own time frame. Once L notified you that the space was ready for you to strat TI work, that was the time the clock started ticking.
If the space was in fact not ready, you should have advised L in writing.
5. You can try to negotiate but it is my opinion that your TI work was slow and you took your time on the construction and opening for business since you thought you were not being charged rent until you actually opened for business.
6. Read your lease very carefully from now on or better yet have an attorney review it for you.
7. Negotiate the rent to $12K and pay over time say $1000 per month.