How to lease out a small commercial building in Texas.

[Joe S.]

The steps to lease a small commercial building in Texas. Is there a special commercial lease or screening process I need to be aware of?  The property is in San Antonio Texas. I am looking to lease it out as the Landlord and not the tenant.

[Joseph Cacciapaglia]

@Joe S. there is a TREC commercial lease form and several addendums, depending on the specifics. As far as screening, there are a few different ways to check a tenant's business credit. It's been a while since I've been involved in commercial leasing, so I'm not sure what the standard is today. DnB used to be a popular method of checking business credit. For smaller spaces, you'll often get businesses that don't have their own credit established. In that case it's common to have the owner guarantee the lease, and then you evaluate their personal ability to pay and credit worthiness. 

There are a lot of other considerations with commercial leases that are a bit different from residential. I'm not sure I'd try to go it on my own without a little experience. I've seen some seemingly minor errors on commercial leases that had pretty terrible long term consequences.