Protect Your Interests During Lease Renegotiations
If you are a land owner who has a contract with a wireless cell phone company regarding
a tower on your property, you are going to probably be approached at some point about lease renegotiations. It is important that you enlist the aid of an authorized vertical real estate asset management company to help you sort through all of the lingo and to answer all of your questions about the proposed terms of the contract and to educate you about changes that are going on in the wireless industry. There are some things that every land lord should know to make sure they are able to still secure a steady income when navigating through those contract lease renegotiations.
First of all, you need to only consult with a real estate asset management company that is authorized by wireless operators to speak with you on their behalf. There are a lot of different individuals and groups who will probably contact you about your lease that are not authorized by the cell phone company in question. They will probably throw a ton of figures and talk to you, but you need to be able to recognize when they have no hard facts about your particular lease agreement. You have to remember that if you try to negotiate with people other than those who are authorized, you will probably jeopardize your cell site rent and compromise your relationship with the cell phone company when you consult unauthorized parties. Authorized individuals and groups are going to always have with them a letter of authorization that will confirm their status and relationship with those wireless companies.
Be on the lookout for any false claims that have to do with your lease renegotiations. There are a lot of land owners, or land lords out there who receive very frequent phone calls from groups who claim that they would be able to get them more money from their cell phone site; these schemes usually involve signing your lease to a third party. Those land owners are paid less than market value for the lease assignment with the promise that the third party is going to market the site to other wireless operators and split future rents with the land owner. This is nothing but a scam, and authorized reps will not propose shady deals such as these.
The most important piece of advice you need to listen to is to take all the time you need to completely and fully read everything in the contract that is proposed to you during lease renegotiations you do not want to be rushed by any company through this step, so dont be in a hurry.