here

Audit clauses in leases are not throw-away provisions. They are not something to be copied from the last document and the one before that and so on. While intended by landlords to “make” pass-through cost billings “final,” as often written, they won’t satisfy that purpose. Similarly, a tenant or other kind of occupant who wants to “contain” its landlord’s right to audit sales records for percentage rent purposes also may want to read what follows. For simplicity (and because the overwhelming number of such situations involve tenancies), we’ll speak of tenants and leases, but the same concepts apply to Covenants, Conditions and Restrictions (CC&Rs) and similar, but differently named, documents. [Read more…]