How To Get Out Of An Office Lease

Perfect. You can download the free sample office lease termination letter right now (below).

Keep in mind that although it was written by attorneys who specialize in helping tenants get out of office leases early without paying any early termination fees, it was not written by your attorneys, and it does not constitute legal advice. Indeed, nothing in this post constitutes legal advice. (<--- we have to say that).

That said, here are some highlights of this sample office termination letter:

• It is free to download and use--you do not need to be a Veeto member.
• It is an attorney-crafted template that allows you to fill in your particular information as you see fit.
• This is a sample of the exact office lease termination letter that Veeto uses to get Veeto members out of office lease contracts they no longer want or need (and Veeto has a 100% success rate at the time this post's publication).

Tenants who are currently in an office lease contract and want to break that office lease without paying early termination fees.

In this post, I will...

1. Give you the free office lease termination letter--a template you can use to fill in your own information manually.
2. Tell you how we use it at Veeto, which might give you some useful tips for using the letter effectively.
3. Tell you how you can get the letter automatically customized to your lease, automatically sent to your landlord, and automatically certify your landlord's receipt of it--nothing you have to print, no postage to buy, and no trips to the post office (hint: this is what Veeto members get).

There is none. By giving this letter away for free, the problem that we hope that we are solving is a situation in which...

1. you know that an attorney could do a better job than you at writing an office lease termination letter
2. but you cannot justify paying your attorney $350 per hour to do it.

Those economics just do not make sense for you (nor is it likely that the economics make sense for your attorney either). So there is this void in which people need effective, attorney-crafted letters for specific situations like getting out of an office lease contract but cannot justify paying for them.

This is the type of situation we built Veeto to solve. And although we are focused on helping Veeto members, there are times when we think we can help out non-members too by sharing some of the tools we created--like this sample office lease termination letter.

But if you also want to know how we use it at Veeto, read on.

Although there is no guarantee that this letter will give you the result you desire, we do not know of any tenant who has used this letter and not been able to get out of his office lease contract. And that track record is--just like any tool--a function of the people who downloaded the letter knowing precisely how to use it. Because a well-written office termination letter is just a tool. You also need to know how to use it.

In a minute, I will walk you through step-by-step how we use this office termination letter to get Veeto members out of unwanted office lease contracts. But first, let me give you some best-practice suggestions for how to use the sample office termination letter after you download it.

Here are some tips:

• Of course, only give your office lease termination notice in writing.
• Certify that your landlord receives the letter.
• Be clear and succinct, always.
• State that you intend to terminate the lease agreement on specific date.
• If you are terminating early and think you are entitled to not pay early termination fees, state why.
• If you are terminating early due to some unresolved issue, state whether you have already tried to resolve the issue, with whom, and how.
• Give your landlord a finite time-frame to resolve your issue as you request.
• State what you intend to do if your landlord fails to resolve your issue within that time-frame.
• Be prepared to do exactly what you say you intend to do and, if necessary, do it.
• Once you give your landlord this office lease termination notice in writing, try to avoid communicating with your landlord by phone or in person; instead, insist that all communication be in writing.
• If your office lease termination letter is well-written, then you should not need to restate any of the information it contains; so try to avoid repeating yourself.
• Instead, just defer questions that your letter has already answered--like what you want, why you think you are entitled to that, and how long you are giving your landlord before you take further action--back to your letter (for example: "I already took the time to clearly articulate that information in my letter that you received on January 16, 2016. As I do not wish to repeat myself, I appreciate you referring to that letter for the answer to your question.").
• The key reason that choosing to not repeat yourself is an effective tactic is that you have already given your landlord a deadline and you are prepared to take further action should your landlord fail to take the action you desire before that deadline...so the ticking clock works in your favor, if it is true that your landlord prefers to avoid you taking that further action.

If you want to see how this process works in a real-life situation, you can read about how one attorney followed these steps to cancel her Regus office lease contract without paying early termination fees (she saved $4,459!).

These steps apply to any office lease agreement that is governed by a written contract, which should be most office lease agreements.

1. Know what your rights and obligations are according to the office lease agreement--which means, if you have already, actually read your office lease agreement.
2. Know what your rights and obligations are according to your jurisdiction (typically your state), since contracts sometimes describe rights and obligations that are counter to what a given jurisdiction allows.
3. Document your gripes as a tenant: write them down and share them--perhaps by email--with your landlord when possible.
4. Sharing your gripes with your landlord also documents that you have made a good-faith effort to try to resolve them before taking further action, like terminating your office lease early
5. Keep a written summary of all communications with your landlord: who you talked to, what was said, and when.
6. When you believe that you have cause to break your office lease early, and you believe that you have exhausted all attempts to resolve your gripes otherwise, craft a legal demand letter in which you state what resolution you demand and why you think you are entitled to it.
7. Make sure the demand letter gives your landlord a finite period to resolve the matter before which you will move to next steps.
8. Send the letter in some manner in which you can certify its receipt, preferably to a VP or higher at your landlord's company.
9. When/if your landlord responds to try to talk you down from the ledge, simply defer to the demand letter that you already sent and refuse to engage in any communication that is not in writing and that is not itself a step toward resolution (like a settlement offer or asking which address to send you a check to).
10.  Stick to your demand: do not accept any proposed resolution other than what you requested; observe the time-frame you gave the landlord; and take further action immediately if the landlord fails to resolve the matter to your satisfaction.

Veeto maintains a mountain of data on which further actions have proven most effective in given situations and places--like filing a complaint with your state's attorney general, filing a complaint with the federal trade commission, filing a lawsuit, or filing an arbitration complaint--and we share that data with Veeto members only. 

But there are some general truths we can share here. What is most effective varies somewhat, but it is generally true that you should take an action that forces your landlord to choose between spending money to oppose your further action or simply giving you what you requested. You will be surprised, probably, how quickly most landlords will cave to your demands once you demonstrate to them that you will not give up.

Not giving up, you should realize, usually just means that you need to go a little further than your landlord expected you to, which is also a little further than your landlord prefers you would have gone.

Here is why. For Veeto members, Veeto will...

• generate the attorney-crafted, office lease termination letter
• customize the letter to your particular case
• send the letter to your landlord and confirm its receipt
• (This is the fun part). Then, if your landlord fails to resolve your demand within the time-frame you gave, Veeto will pay all filing fees to sue your landlord, which means Veeto members are able to take further action without having to come out of pocket for anything.
• With this formula, Veeto has never lost a case.

You can use the sample office lease termination letter above however you see fit. Or, if you prefer the easier way, then you can let Veeto do the work for you and bankroll any costs associated with showing your landlord that you do not intend to give up.