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The two most important decisions a tenant has to make when they want to find an office for rent is to a) pick the best office rental agent and b) pick the most suitable interior design. Corporate Locations know all the interior designers for office space in Singapore and not all will suit any given tenant. Some designers are ‘high end’ specialists, where cost is not an issue used often for banks etc, where budget is not a factor. Some designers are super-competitive and offer ultra-low cost designs but this often means ‘cutting corners’. Some designers fit into the middle category offering good quality ‘turnkey’ interior solutions at reasonable prices. For a list of recommended interior designers, please visit our Useful Contacts page, also under Tenants Resources.

Another useful Tenant's Guide we have is an outline of 'Banana Skins' to avoid, when looking for commercial property to rent. This includes the importance of selecting the right size of office space for lease. If the space ends up as too small, then this can cause big problems and if the office space is to large, then this will cause wasted costs. We always recommend a tenant have their interior designer conduct a space planning exercise before committing to any lease on the premises. Other problems arise when a tenant has leased fully fitted office premises. All tenants are obliged to reinstate their premises at the end of their lease, to bare shell condition, as no landlord wants to incur the cost of stripping out what one of his previous tenants put in. The exception is where an outgoing tenant finds an ingoing tenant, who wants to take-over the premises in its current fitted condition. Then the liability to reinstate is passed onto the new tenant. The tricky bit is that the new tenant might not know what the ordinal condition was. So care is needed to check what the previous tenant took out/ put in. For instance, if the previous tenant replaced the entire ceiling, the new tenant will be responsible for putting back the old ceiling.

Sometimes the legal paperwork can also be a minefield. It is often said the devil is in the detail but sometimes it is the lack of detail that works against the tenant. Usually the thicker the lease the more protected the tenant is. For instance an option to renew is often included a lease, after the first term but the revised rental rate is to be ‘at a rate to be agreed’. The landlord could, for whatever reason, be as difficult as he wants to be about the new rent and the tenant has no protection. Again, this is why it is essential that tenants use a professional office agent when dealing with Singapore office rental.