“One of the early learning curves I had in commercial property was understanding how a legal commercial lease can be used as leverage in a negotiation . Why I use the word "legal" is that many leases out there are not legally binding through a simple error, quite often without either party knowing. Something as simple as not having paid the stamp duty could deem a lease invalid.The story involved a landlord who had recently bought a building with the intention of refurbishing the entire block. The only tenant that came along as part of his acquisition was a restaurant on the ground floor which had recently shut it's doors, but was still being held to their lease by the landlord. Understandably there was some bad blood developing between the new landlord & now defunct restaurant owner. In what seemed like a reasonable offer, the landlord offered to let the tenant our of the balance of his lease for 50% of the rental that was due for the remainder to the period.After doing some homework, the tenant discovered the landlords intention was to develop the building, and that he in fact occupied the primary access point into the building for the construction team.Realising that the landlord was intending on starting his redevelopment of the property within a few months, he sent a short letter in response to the his settlement offer. The message read "I am exercising my option to extend my lease for an additional 3 years". Of course this completely shifted the power into the tenants hand, as the entire building was empty and the cost of the delay could financially break the developer.As to what the exact settlement amount was I am not sure. But what I am sure of is that the Landlord was paying the Tenant, and it was a great deal more then he was initially asked to pay.”