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Tenant-side · Commercial lease restructuring · New Zealand
If the rent has outgrown what the business can carry, you're not stuck with it. Most leases can be reset.
We restructure commercial leases for tenants: rent, review structure, flexibility and terms. We build the commercial case, take it to the landlord, and reset the lease so it supports the business again instead of draining it.
Rent Recovered Over A Restructured Term
Restructuring Commercial Leases For Tenants
Never Landlords, Never Agents Who Also Act For Landlords
THE PROBLEM
Rent gets set in one set of conditions, then sits there for years. The market shifts. The business changes. The lease stays exactly where it was. Most tenants assume that once it's signed, that's the end of it. It isn't.
THE COST OF GETTING IT WRONG
Take a tenant paying $140,000 a year on a lease signed in 2019. The market has moved. The same space rents for $110,000 today. That's $30,000 a year over market, on a lease with four years left to run. $120,000, gone quietly, while the business carries it.
That money rarely shows up as one bad decision, so nobody flags it. It just leaves the business, month after month, on terms that stopped making sense years ago.
Marcus tested the lease against the market and renegotiated the lot — a lower rent, market reviews instead of automatic CPI, and a way out of the guarantees.
YOUR GUIDE
The hardest part is usually the first move. "I didn't think I could go back to the landlord" is the most common thing I hear. You signed the lease, things changed, and you assumed that was that. The fear of even raising it keeps a lot of tenants paying for years.
But a landlord doesn't want an empty premises either. When you bring a credible, commercial case, backed by market rents and the numbers, they engage. I've run those conversations for 20 years. I act for tenants only. Never landlords.
20 years tenant-side
Tenant-side only
Commercial and evidence-led
A lease the business can carry
OUR APPROACH
A structured, commercial process that takes the emotion out of it and gets the landlord to a workable outcome.
I read the lease, benchmark the rent against the current market, and weigh the occupancy cost against how the business is actually performing. We find where the problem sits.
I set the restructuring strategy: a rent reset, a changed review structure, turnover rent or more flexibility. Framed around sustainability and a workable outcome for both sides.
I take the case to the landlord, negotiate the revised terms, and lock the agreed changes into a deed of variation so the new deal is enforceable.
What We Manage
Restructuring is rarely just the headline rent. It's the structure underneath it. We work the levers that reset the cost and give the business room to move.
Reset the base rent to a sustainable level, backed by real market evidence rather than where the lease happened to land years ago.
Shift from fixed rent to stepped or turnover rent where it fits an underperforming site, so cost moves with the business.
Change how and when reviews happen, so the rent stops quietly compounding above market every year.
Break rights, sublease and assignment, and downsizing options that give the business a way to move if it needs to.
Vary the obligations that no longer fit, from outgoings to make-good, so the lease reflects how the business runs now.
Document the agreed changes properly. In NZ a verbal deal with the landlord isn't enforceable, so the variation has to be in writing.
You go to the landlord with a credible, evidence-backed case
Rent and terms reset to what the business can actually carry
The new deal is locked into a deed of variation, properly documented
WHAT GOOD LOOKS LIKE
Three real restructures, and what resetting the lease gave back to the tenant. Anonymised, because these conversations are confidential.
Four terms reset in the tenant’s favour on an inherited restaurant lease: a lower base rent, market rent reviews in place of automatic CPI rises, a clean exit route for the guarantors, and almost 12 more years of secure tenure.
Who This Is For
We restructure leases for franchise, retail, hospitality and service businesses, from single sites to multi-site networks. If property isn't your core expertise but the rent has become one of your biggest pressures, you're exactly who we work for.
The right time to look at this is the moment the lease starts working against the business. Most tenants wait years longer than they need to. And if a restructure isn't viable, I'll tell you that early, and we'll look at exit and relocation instead.
Common questions
Yes. A signed lease can be varied at any time if both parties agree to it. A landlord has no obligation to engage mid-term, but most will when you bring a credible commercial case, because an empty tenancy and re-letting costs hurt them too.
It's the fear that keeps most tenants paying. Handled commercially, the conversation becomes about finding a workable outcome for both sides. A landlord weighing a vacancy against a paying tenant has a real reason to come to the table.
Negotiating is the deal you strike at the start or at renewal, before you sign. Restructuring is reopening an existing lease part-way through its term because the terms have stopped working. Different moment, different approach.
Sometimes the numbers point to exit or relocation as the better move, and I'll tell you that honestly rather than push a restructure that won't hold. We look at the full picture before recommending anything.
Yes. In NZ a lease variation has to be recorded in a formal deed of variation. A verbal agreement with the landlord isn't enforceable, so we make sure the agreed changes are written up and signed properly.
Free Download
Download the checklist I use to work out whether a lease can be restructured, and what to have ready before you raise it. The questions to answer before the conversation.
contact us
Tell me where the lease is hurting and what's changed. In one call I'll tell you whether it can be restructured, what I'd push for, and what it's worth. In confidence, no obligation.
