Specific activities explicitly banned within the leased premises.
By Angel Campa, Founder · Updated March 2026
Prohibited use lists can inadvertently restrict legitimate business activities. A prohibition on "food preparation" could prevent an office tenant from operating a break room kitchen. "No storage of hazardous materials" could affect a medical or dental tenant who uses standard cleaning chemicals. Understanding what is prohibited ensures the tenant's operations comply from day one and avoids default situations that could trigger lease termination.
Found in the "Use" or "Prohibited Uses" section, often as a bulleted or numbered list following the permitted use description. Some prohibitions appear in the building rules and regulations exhibit rather than the lease body.
Lextract uses a combination of AWS Textract OCR and Claude AI to identify and extract the prohibited uses from your lease PDF. The AI searches for all pages of the document, then assigns a confidence score based on OCR quality and extraction certainty. Fields with lower confidence are flagged for human review.
Permitted Use
The specific, legally allowed business activities the tenant can conduct.
Fascia Signage
The right to affix branding directly onto the exterior wall of the building.
Monument Signage
The right to place the tenant's name on a shared roadside structure.
Signage Maintenance
Determines if the landlord or tenant is financially responsible for sign upkeep.
Common prohibitions include: adult entertainment, hazardous material storage, heavy manufacturing, medical waste generation, live animal handling, gambling operations, firearms sales, and any use that generates excessive noise, odor, or vibration. Shopping center leases often include longer lists protecting other tenants' exclusives.
Only through a formal lease amendment signed by both parties. If the tenant discovers a prohibition that conflicts with planned operations, they should negotiate the modification before signing the original lease. Post-signing amendments require landlord cooperation, which is not guaranteed.
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