ESCALATION 2016- ARE YOU READY?

The New Year is here and if you are an office tenant your escalation invoice is probably on the way soon. According to the lease, most office tenants are responsible to pay their proportionate share of increases in Real Estate Taxes and Operating Expenses above the Base Year (usually the first calendar year of the lease term). This seems all well and good. The invoice, when it arrives, looks like an official document, so most tenants simply prefer to pay it and move on. After all, who really understands this stuff anyway?

If you want to be safe and decide to send the bill to your lawyer, he will confirm that the lease obligates you to pay escalation, and will then probably send you a bill for his time to confirm this. If you send the bill to your accountant, he will probably tell you that he is in the middle of tax season, and really does not have the time to look at this now, but maybe after April 15th he can review the invoice for you—and then he too will probably send you a bill for his time.

So, how does the average tenant know whether the bill is legitimate and should be paid?  To find out, please click on the link below to visit my blog.

http://dicksteinrealestate.com/escalation-2016-are-you-ready/