A commercial lease runs for 7 years.
Read every clause.
Make-good obligations that cost $200K at exit. Uncapped CPI rent reviews. Demolition clauses buried on page 34. Kontractually reviews commercial leases against your playbook and surfaces what matters before you sign.
No credit card required. First 3 reviews free.
What changes when you stop skimming leases.
Your landlord sends a 48-page lease renewal. You skim it and miss the make-good clause buried on page 36. At lease end, you owe $250K to strip the fit-out you paid $180K to install.
Kontractually flags the make-good obligation in 3 minutes, showing the exact clause and estimated exposure. You negotiate fair wear and tear language before signing.
The lease has a CPI rent review with no cap. Over a 7-year term, your rent increases 38% while market rents only rise 15%. You had no idea because nobody modelled the exposure.
Kontractually flags uncapped CPI reviews and highlights the absence of a cap or ratchet clause. You negotiate a 4% annual cap before committing.
Two directors sign personal guarantees on a commercial lease. The business closes 3 years in. The guarantees have no cap and no sunset clause - the landlord pursues both directors personally for the remaining term.
Kontractually flags unlimited personal guarantees and missing sunset provisions. You negotiate a cap at 12 months rent and a guarantee that expires at year 3.
Every clause that makes or breaks a commercial lease.
Pre-built commercial lease playbooks cover the clauses that create the most risk and cost.
Rent review mechanisms that protect your position
CPI with no cap, market review with upward-only ratchets, fixed percentage increases that compound aggressively over a long term. Kontractually checks every rent review clause against your playbook and flags mechanisms that expose you to uncapped or one-sided increases over the lease term.
Make-good obligations before they cost six figures
Full restoration to original condition sounds reasonable until you price it at lease end. Kontractually flags broad make-good clauses, checks for fair wear and tear carve-outs, and highlights obligations that require removal of fit-out you installed at your own cost. Better to negotiate now than discover at exit.
Personal guarantee scope and limitations
Directors' personal guarantees with no cap on liability, no sunset clause, and no release mechanism on assignment. Kontractually checks guarantee clauses against your standard requirements - liability caps, guarantee periods, release on transfer of lease, and whether the guarantee survives assignment to a new tenant.
Option to renew terms and exercise deadlines
Missing an option exercise deadline forfeits your right to renew. Kontractually checks that option terms are clearly defined, notice periods are reasonable, and renewal conditions (like rent review on exercise) are consistent with your standard terms. Flags strict deadlines that need diary management.
Your playbook defines what gets checked. Common rules include: rent review mechanism (CPI vs. fixed % vs. market, and whether there's an upward-only ratchet), make-good obligations (full restoration vs. fair wear and tear), personal guarantee scope, demolition or redevelopment clauses, assignment and subletting rights, option exercise notice requirements, outgoings definitions, and exclusivity clauses for retail leases. You set the standard; Kontractually checks the lease against it.
Yes. The playbook rules define the perspective. A landlord playbook checks that the tenant's obligations are clearly defined, that make-good requirements are enforceable, that the rent review mechanism is appropriately drafted, and that personal guarantee provisions are in the landlord's favour. Switch perspectives by switching playbooks.
You can add jurisdiction-specific rules to your playbook - for example, a rule that any retail lease must include a lease disclosure statement (required under retail tenancy legislation in Australia, the UK, and many US states). Kontractually applies those rules to the document. It doesn't interpret legislation - it checks whether the clauses you've defined as required are present and whether flagged clauses are absent.
Accuracy depends on document quality (clear PDFs work best) and playbook specificity (specific rules outperform vague ones). For typical 20-40 page commercial leases, clause identification and flagging is highly accurate. We recommend treating Kontractually's output as a first-pass flag, not a final sign-off. Low-confidence flags are labelled as such.
Yes - this is one of the most common use cases for property managers. Lease renewals often introduce new clauses or modify existing ones. Kontractually reviews the renewal against your original lease terms and flags any changes to rent review mechanisms, term lengths, make-good requirements, or outgoings definitions. Upload both documents and it compares against your standard.
Also useful
Don't sign a 7-year lease without reading it.
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