Commercial Sublease Agreement

A Commercial Sublease Agreement is a document that allows a tenant to transfer their commercial lease to another for a specific period. A Commercial Lease is a rental property for commercial or business purposes, such as offices, warehouses, stores, or other business properties. Typically, the tenant enters a Commercial Lease Agreement with the owner of the premises (the landlord), and the tenant pays rent to the landlord. The tenant may rent or lease a portion of their entire lease to another person for a fee. The person to whom the tenant subleases the commercial rental property is the sublessee or subtenant. A sublease enables the tenant to rent or transfer their subsisting commercial lease to a subtenant who will pay rent to the tenant.

Note that a tenant can only sublet their lease if the original lease permits or the landlord permits the sublease. In a sublease, the tenant will continue paying rent to the landlord and ensure the subtenant's compliance with the terms of the original lease.

In this agreement, the tenant may choose to either rent:

• The entire rental property. In this case, the tenant will vacate the rental property for the subtenant, and the subtenant will pay rent to the tenant; or

• A portion of a property. For example, if the tenant occupies two office spaces in one flat and the tenant may sublet one office space to the subtenant, the tenant is leasing only a portion of the property. In this case, the tenant may continue using the other office space.

Please note that this document cannot be used to sublet or transfer a Residential Lease (rental property for people to live in); rather a tenant should use the Residential Sublease Agreement to transfer their apartment/home leases.

How to use this document

This document requires specific information, such as:

• the name and address of the tenant;

• the name and address of the subtenant;

• description of the subleased premises;

• information about the rent payment, including rent amount, frequency of payment; and

• whether a deposit is required.

After completing this document, the document should be printed and signed the tenant and subtenant. If either of the parties is a company, a director or one director and one secretary should sign the document. If either of the parties is any other organization other than the company, for example, a sole proprietorship or partnership business, the officer of the organization should sign the document and have it attested to by a witness who will fill out their name, address, occupation and append a signature on the space allocated to the witness.

Each party should keep one of the signed documents for their record.

Applicable laws

The Tenancy laws of Lagos State apply to rental properties in Lagos. Also, depending on the location of the rental property, the tenant laws of other states in Nigeria are applicable to this document.

How to modify the template

You fill out a form. The document is created before your eyes as you respond to the questions.

At the end, you receive it in Word and PDF formats. You can modify it and reuse it.