Commercial space represented as more than actual

[SamT]

My business leases industrial space in CA. Our first lease 9 years ago listed the space as 5700 sq ft at $0.55/sq ft. 2 years later our renewal lease listed the same space as 5671 sq ft at .58/sq ft.

We have signed several renewals over the years for higher rents, always with the space listed at 5671 sq ft.

We've just measured it and it is actually slightly less than 5200 square feet. We've reported the error to the owner and their going to check the blueprints but we're wondering what our legal rights are. This amounts to over $27K overpayment over the 9 years we've leased. Do we have any legal right to a refund? If yes, for all 9 years or is there a limit on how many years we can go back?

 

[LL]

Does your lease say how the square footage is measured?

Usually, in RE, square footage of a structure is based on outside measurements of outside walls, and sometimes, small spaces are just considered as being within rectangles formed by the walls.

Check the county assessor's recorded square footage. A judge would go for using that figure.

 

[HomeGuru]

There are different ways to calculate demising space square footage. What does your lease state? The measurements could be taken from the inside walls, outside walls, a portion of both methods etc.
Contact BOMA as they have set standards which may or may not apply in your specific case.

 

[SamT]

Thank you for your input. The lease does not say. We're the end unit of a single-story multi-tenant building. When we measured and came up with 5200 sq ft, we measured outside dimensions because we couldn't believe it was so wrong. The lease has a page with a handdrawn floorplan of the space (inside) and reads "Warehouse 3900 sq ft", "Office 1800 sq ft". No further detail such as length x width is noted. We suspect the space was hand measured and that 2 offices and a shower located within the warehouse may have been counted as warehouse space and again counted as office space. Those offices total the "extra" sq footage and would explain the error. Assuming the owner re-measures and they were wrong, my question is do I have a legal right to a total or partial refund?