Commercial Lease Data Entry Checklist: 126 Fields

Complete lease data entry requires capturing significantly more than tenant name, rent, and expiration date. A thorough abstraction covering all material provisions protects ownership against missed deadlines, billing errors, and disputes over lease obligations. This checklist covers the 16 categories of information that a production lease abstract should capture.

Use this as a verification checklist against any lease entry in your property management system. If a field is blank, ask whether the information was truly absent from the lease or was simply missed.

Category 1: Parties

• Landlord legal entity name - the exact entity name as stated in the lease; must match the signing entity
• Landlord jurisdiction of formation - the state where the landlord entity was formed (Delaware LLC, California LP, etc.)
• Tenant legal entity name - exact legal name; matters for default and enforcement proceedings
• Tenant jurisdiction of formation
• Tenant trade name / DBA - if different from legal entity name
• Guarantor name - personal or corporate guaranty; the guarantor's identity and obligation scope
• Guaranty burn-off provisions - if the guaranty reduces or terminates upon certain conditions (e.g., years of occupancy, financial covenants)
• Landlord notice address
• Tenant notice address
• Broker(s) - both landlord and tenant brokers; relevant for commission disputes

Common error: Using the informal company name instead of the legal entity. "Acme Corp" and "Acme Corporation of Delaware" are different for enforcement purposes.

Category 2: Premises

• Property address
• Suite or unit number
• Floor(s) occupied
• Rentable square footage - the RSF as stated in the lease
• Usable square footage - if disclosed
• Load factor / add-on factor - the ratio of RSF to USF
• Premises legal description - particularly for ground leases or leases with complex premises definitions
• Common areas included - any specific common areas the tenant has exclusive or priority use of
• Parking - number of spaces, type (reserved vs. unreserved), location, and cost
• Storage - any storage space, square footage, and whether it is included in RSF

Common error: Accepting the landlord's RSF figure without verifying against the BOMA measurement methodology specified in the lease.

Category 3: Lease Term

• Lease commencement date
• Rent commencement date - if different from commencement (free rent period)
• Lease expiration date
• Lease term in months
• Free rent period - months of free base rent, and whether CAM continues during free rent
• Holdover provisions - the rent percentage during holdover (typically 125–150% of last rent) and whether holdover is month-to-month or converts to a periodic tenancy

Common error: Entering commencement date and expiration date without flagging that rent does not start until a later date, causing early billing errors.

Category 4: Base Rent

• Starting base rent - monthly and annual amounts
• Starting rent per square foot - annual basis
• Rent commencement date (if applicable)
• Full rent schedule - one row per rent period, with start date, end date, monthly amount, and annual amount
• Lease year definition - is the lease year defined from commencement, or does it follow the calendar year?

Common error: Capturing only the starting rent and not the full escalation schedule, causing future billing errors when rents step up.

Category 5: Rent Escalations

• Escalation type - fixed percentage, fixed dollar step-up, CPI, or combination
• Annual escalation rate - the percentage for fixed escalations
• Escalation frequency - annually, every 3 years, at specific dates
• Escalation dates - the exact dates when rent changes
• CPI index - specific BLS series and geographic coverage (for CPI escalations)
• CPI base index date - the date of the base CPI measurement
• CPI cap / floor - minimum and maximum annual CPI adjustment
• Compound vs. flat escalation - clarify in the notes if the lease language is ambiguous

Category 6: Operating Expenses

• Lease structure type - NNN, modified gross, gross, full service
• CAM estimate at commencement - annual amount
• Real estate tax estimate - annual amount
• Insurance estimate - annual amount
• Pro-rata share percentage
• Pro-rata share denominator - how the denominator is defined (total building RSF, occupied RSF, a fixed denominator)
• CAM cap - cumulative or year-over-year cap on tenant's CAM increases; base year for cap
• Management fee cap - maximum allowable management fee as a percentage of gross revenues
• Gross-up provision - the occupancy threshold for grossing up variable expenses
• CAM exclusions - specific items excluded from CAM (capital items, executive salaries, leasing commissions, depreciation)
• Audit rights - tenant's right to audit landlord's operating expense records; notice window and timing after reconciliation delivery

Common error: Failing to note the CAM cap base year, which determines what expenses can be escalated going forward in cap-limited leases.

Category 7: Security Deposit

• Security deposit amount
• Security deposit form - cash, letter of credit, or combination
• Letter of credit details - if applicable: issuing bank, expiration date, draw conditions, renewal obligations
• Burn-down schedule - if the security deposit reduces over time based on conditions
• Return conditions - timeline and conditions for return of deposit at lease expiration
• Landlord's right to apply deposit - circumstances allowing landlord to draw on the deposit

Category 8: Options

• Renewal options - number of options, term length per option, and whether they are exercisable only in sequence
• Renewal option rent - how renewal rent is determined (fixed rate, fair market value, FMV with floor/ceiling)
• Renewal notice deadline - the date by which notice must be given; express as a calendar date, not just "X months before expiration"
• Renewal option conditions - conditions for exercise (e.g., tenant not in default, tenant in occupancy)
• Expansion option - right to lease additional space; trigger conditions, notice requirements, rent determination
• Termination option - right to terminate before expiration; termination date, notice deadline, termination fee calculation
• Right of first offer (ROFO) - right to receive first offer on defined space; trigger, notice period, response window
• Right of first refusal (ROFR) - right to match a third-party offer on defined space; trigger, notice period, response window
• Purchase option - right to purchase the property; exercise conditions, price or price determination methodology

Category 9: Assignment and Subletting

• Assignment rights - whether and under what conditions the tenant may assign the lease
• Subletting rights
• Landlord consent standard - "sole discretion," "reasonable consent," "not to be unreasonably withheld"
• Landlord recapture right - landlord's right to recapture the space if assignment or subletting is requested
• Permitted transfers - assignments that do not require landlord consent (affiliate transfers, corporate restructurings)
• Profit sharing on sublease - whether excess rent received in a sublease is shared with landlord; split percentage

Category 10: Insurance Requirements

• Commercial general liability - required coverage amount (per occurrence and aggregate)
• Property insurance - whether tenant must carry property insurance on its personal property and improvements
• Additional insured - confirmation that landlord is named as additional insured
• Waiver of subrogation - whether tenant's insurer waives subrogation rights against landlord
• Worker's compensation - statutory limits required
• Business interruption - if required

Category 11: Use and Exclusivity

• Permitted use - the specific use or uses permitted under the lease
• Prohibited uses - any restrictions on how the premises may be used
• Exclusive use provision - whether the tenant has exclusivity at the property for certain business types or operations
• Co-tenancy provision - conditions that must be met for the lease to remain in effect at full rent (anchor tenancy, occupancy percentage)
• Co-tenancy remedy - what happens if co-tenancy conditions are not met (rent reduction, termination right)

Category 12: Tenant Improvements

• Tenant improvement allowance - amount, disbursement conditions, deadline to utilize
• Landlord work - what construction the landlord will complete before delivery
• Delivery condition - the condition of the premises at delivery (shell, warm shell, as-is, built-out)
• Construction deadline - if landlord must complete work by a certain date; what happens if the date is missed

Category 13: Special Provisions

• Force majeure - what events excuse performance; whether rent abatement applies
• Subordination, non-disturbance, and attornment (SNDA) - tenant's obligation to subordinate to lender's deed of trust; lender's obligation to honor the lease if landlord is foreclosed
• Estoppel certificate obligation - the timeline for tenant to respond to landlord's request for estoppel
• Casualty provisions - landlord's and tenant's rights following casualty damage; repair timeline; termination right if repair is not completed timely
• Condemnation provisions - rights and rent adjustments if premises are taken by eminent domain

Category 14: Governing Law and Administration

• Governing law - the state whose law governs the lease
• Dispute resolution - litigation, arbitration, or mediation first
• Venue - where disputes must be filed
• Attorney's fees provision - whether the prevailing party recovers fees
• Recording - whether a memorandum of lease is recorded; if so, document recording information
• Amendment log - date, description, and material changes for each amendment executed

This checklist reflects the 126-field schema used by Lextract's extraction pipeline, which covers all 16 categories systematically. Lease abstraction tools that work from a fixed schema ensure that none of these fields are missed - which is the principal advantage over ad-hoc manual abstraction where the reviewer's knowledge and attention determine what gets captured.