Your Doorway to Commercial Property. FREE to List!

1. LAWYER’S ADVICE (NSW) – NO CHARGE (for a change)

A corporate LAWYER sent the following out to the employees in his company:

1. Next time you order cheques, have only your initials (instead of your first name) and surname put on them. If someone takes your cheque book, they will not know if you sign your cheques with just your initials or your first name, but your bank will know how you sign your cheques.

2. Do not sign the back of your credit cards. Instead, put “PHOTO ID REQUIRED”.

3. When you are writing cheques to pay on your credit card accounts, DO NOT put the complete account number on the “For” line. Instead, just put the last four numbers. The credit card company knows the rest of the number, and anyone who might be handling your cheque as it passes through all the cheque processing channels won’t have access to it.

4. Place your work phone number on your cheques instead of your home phone. If you have a PO Box, use that instead of your home address. If you do not have a PO Box, use your work address. Never have your Centrelink Number printed on your cheques. You can add it if it is necessary, but if you have it printed, anyone can get it.

5. Run the contents of your wallet through a photocopy machine. Do both sides of each licence, credit card, etc. You will know what you had in your wallet and all of the account numbers and phone numbers to call and cancel. Keep the photocopy in a safe place (not your wallet). I also carry a photocopy of my passport when travelling either here or abroad. We’ve all heard horror stories about fraud that’s committed on us in stealing a name, address, Social Security number, credit cards.

Unfortunately I, an attorney, have first-hand knowledge because my wallet was stolen last month. Within a week, the thieves ordered an expensive monthly mobile phone package, applied for a VISA credit card, had a credit line approved to buy a Dell computer, received a PIN number from DMV to change my driving record information on-line, and more.

But here’s some critical information to limit the damage in case this happens to you or someone you know:

1. We have been told we should cancel our credit cards immediately, but the key is having the toll free numbers and your card numbers handy so you know whom to call. Keep those where you can find them.  

2. File a police report immediately in the jurisdiction where your credit cards, etc., were stolen. This proves to credit providers you were diligent, and this is a first step toward an investigation (if there ever is one).

3. But here’s what is perhaps most important of all: (I never even thought to do this.)

Call the three national credit reporting organizations immediately to place a fraud alert on your Tax File Number your passport number and driver’s licence number. I had never heard of doing that until advised by a bank that called to tell me an application for credit was made over the Internet in my name. The alert means any company that checks your credit knows your information was stolen, and they have to contact you by phone to authorise new credit. By the time I was advised to do this, almost two weeks after the theft, all the damage had been done. There are records of all the credit checks initiated by the thieves’ purchases, none of which I knew about before placing the alert. Since then, no additional damage has been done, and the thieves threw my wallet away. This weekend someone handed it in. It seems to have stopped them dead in their tracks.

Now, here are some numbers which you might need to contact if your wallet etc has been stolen:
1. Visa Card Australia – 1800 621 199
2. Visa Card International – 1800 450 346
3. Lost Travellers’ Cheques – 1800 127 477
4. MasterCard Australia – (02) 9466 3700
5. MasterCard International – 1800 120 113
6. Bankcard Australia – (02) 9281 6633
7. Medicare – 132 011
8. Centrelink Fraud – 137 230
9. Seniors Card – 1300 364 758
10. Passport – 131 232
11. ANZ FREECALL – 1800 033 844
12. Bank West – 131 718
13. Citibank – 132 484
14. Tamworth Coles/Myer Source –2340 1300 306 397
15. Commonwealth – 132 221
16. CUSCAL- MyCard 1300 135 538
17. GE Capital – 1300 369 904
18. Members Equity – 1300 654 998
19. National – 132 265
20. St George – 1800 028 208
21. SydneyVirgin – 2000 1800 080 000
22. Westpac – 1800 230 144
23. Woolworths Ezy Banking – 137 288

If you have been thinking about getting involved in the Property Industry then this seminar being run by five well known Property Investors may be of interest to you.

The seminar is run over two days and only costs $47 for both days.  Events are being held in Christchurch and Auckland.

Details can be found HERE.

Written by Michael Smyth on Business Blogs.  See original HERE

Why Business Tenants should proceed with caution

With commercial vacancies in New Zealand’s main commercial centres tipped to go above 10%, many businesses may be tempted to get bigger or better premises, or open up new offices to take advantage of lower rents. However, the future has never been more uncertain than in the current economic downturn and businesses are well advised to look carefully before signing any documents which could ultimately spell financial disaster later on.

Know your documents

Before signing any document, you must understand what you are signing. Do not rely on the word of a Real Estate agent who may tell you that “its standard and everyone signs”.

If you are going into business premises there are two types of documents which you could be asked to sign: a lease and an agreement to lease. A lease is a contract between you and your landlord which sets out all the terms you have agreed relating to how that lease will operate. An agreement to lease on the other hand, is simply an agreement that you will enter into a full lease agreement at a later date. Since it is not a full lease, the agreement to lease does not contain all the terms you will later be agreeing to. By signing an agreement to lease document you may be committing yourself to signing a lease which works against you and in favour of the landlord. Therefore, it is important to get any agreement to lease document checked by a lawyer before you sign. If you don’t, then it may make it extremely difficult for you to extract yourself from onerous lease terms later on.

What onerous terms should you look out for?

There are a number of clauses in a typical or standard lease agreement which you should watch out for and negotiate. The first issue you should consider in the length or term of the lease. Don’t be persuaded into entering a long term such as six years without the ability to get out of the lease early if you need to. In the current economic climate you need the flexibility to bail out in case business goes bad. If you have committed to a long term then you remain liable for the rent whether you are in occupancy or not.

If you set up a separate company to take the lease, you may not think that will avoid the risk but it is likely your landlord will ask for a Director’s or Shareholder’s guarantee. This makes you, the business owner, personally liable if the company doesn’t pay. The same could apply if you assign the lease to another business and it doesn’t pay.

An assignment may not solve your problems either

When you “assign” a lease, you sell it to another party so that they become the tenant for the remainder of the lease term. You would think that this would absolve you of a liability to pay rent, but not necessarily. Many lease agreements provide that the original tenant (and guarantor) remain liable for the rent regardless of any assignment to a third party. Therefore, if the third party defaults on the rent, the landlord may come after you. Clearly this is undesirable so you need to negotiate these clauses to absolve you of any liability. If you don’t, you will not only end up liable for the rent which you originally agreed but also any rent increases that occur during the term… which brings me to my next point.

Will any rent increases be fair?

Beware of what are commonly called “rent ratchet clauses”. These are clauses which automatically increase the rent at given review points regardless of what the market is doing. Such clauses could mean that you end up paying greater than market rent which is very undesirable. Rent reviews in themselves are normal but they should be based upon market rent and not on some arbitrary figure. Therefore, pay close scrutiny to how these clauses are drafted.

Of course, the obligation to pay rent will just be one of many tenant obligations contained in the lease and care should be given to ensure that the remaining obligations are also not too onerous. For example, the obligation to maintain the premises will fall upon the tenant but you must ensure that they are not too wide. Also make sure that you have budgeted for other costs such as rates, insurance premiums, rubbish collection etc. One cost which sometimes catches tenants out is the obligation to pay the landlord’s solicitors’ costs for preparing the lease. Make sure you find out what these costs are (and negotiate them down) before you proceed.

Always Proceed with caution

Needless to say, lease agreements require careful reading before you sign on the dotted line. Few business owners will be qualified to do this without expert advice which is where your solicitor should come in. Always run these documents past your lawyer first and never rely on the advice of a real estate agent, otherwise your business could end up with a weight around its neck which in turn could spell financial disaster for you and your business.

If, like us, you are faced with finding new premises for your business then we can fully sympathize with you.

I constantly ask myself, why is it so hard.  You look through a number of websites all of which have different designs and present a limited amount of information.

Alternatively you drive around the area you are interested in noting down premises that are available and justify further research.  Back to the computer again and start the job of looking up the details on what you found,  you contact the vendors only to find the premises was rented/sold a few weeks ago but they haven’t got around to taking the signs down…..now how do you feel?

What you are looking for is retail space on or around Queens Street, that has 150m²of retail space, about 50m² of storage space and at least 80m² of office space.  You also require at least two car parks and it would be great if it had a shower or maybe a mezzanine floor.  Price wise it must not cost more than $250 per m^2.

This surely is not too much to ask, right! The reality is, it was, but now FindSpace will let you search for exactly what you are after.  Here are some of the features and tools of our site that will assist you in your search:

1. For all properties that are for sale and/or lease we ensure there is a price loaded against the listing as the last thing you want to do is waste time looking at properties outside your price range.
2. We capture the full breakdown of a property into its area types so that you can run a query as structured above with multiple building uses.
3. We capture a Post Code for all listings so you can see all retail space for sale/lease within a geographic area.
4. We provide the most comprehensive search tool, SpaceFinder, so you can quickly narrow down your search to exactly what you are after.
5. We automatically expire all listings every 28 days so you never waste time reviewing properties that are no longer available.
6. We display your shortlist of properties on Google Maps so you can easily see how they all relate to the area you are interested in.
7. We only list Commercial Property so the site is 100% geared to capturing and displaying only relevant information (no field for number of beds on our site).
8. Once you have saved your search criteria we will e-mail you daily any new listings that are added that meet your requirements so you don’t have to spend any more time than necessary in this time consuming pursuit.
9. Our site is completely open so Landlords/Property Investors get the exact same deal and features as Real Estate Agents.
10. We even provide the ability to push all your listings back to your site, ClientSpace, so you only have to maintain the data on the FindSpace site and it appears on two website, two sites for the work of one.
11. Last, but not least, the site is currently totally FREE to list so there is no barrier to landlords not listing with us.

We are constantly working on the site to make it better for you, the end user.  So if you have property for sale or lease it makes very good sense to list it on FindSpace as your customers will be better able to find it.

KiwiRail is looking for long-term tenants for 2 of its prime Christchurch industrial sites.

One of them is the mammoth B Shed in Cass St (outlined in photo), which has 10,388m² of warehouse on a 1.9ha site. It’s the biggest warehouse within 1km of the cbd and was previously home to Westland Milk Products for 8 years before the milk company shifted to bigger premises at Izone Southern Business Hub.

Jonathan Lyttle & Ben Dwan, specialist industrial brokers at Colliers International in Christchurch, said the warehouse had 2 active rail sidings.

The second property, 9660m² on Ensors Rd, Opawa, is next to the main arterials north & south and was previously occupied by Leopard Coachlines. It has a 313m² southern office, a 198m² northern office & 135m² of ancillary storage & offices.