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Free Florida Commercial Lease Agreement

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Florida Commercial Lease Agreement — Commercial (nonresidential) lease for Florida business property. Governed by F.S. Chapter 83, Part I — not residential tenant protections.

FL Commercial Lease F.S. § 83.001 et seq. (Part I) Florida Free PDF

A Florida commercial lease agreement is the contract that rents nonresidential (business) property — retail, office, industrial, or restaurant space. Unlike an apartment lease, it is not governed by the residential landlord-tenant act. A commercial tenancy falls under Florida Statutes Chapter 83, Part I (§§ 83.001–83.251) plus general contract law, so the residential protections in Part II — the deposit rules of § 83.49 and the implied warranty of habitability in § 83.51 — simply do not apply. That means freedom of contract controls: the parties negotiate rent, escalations, CAM (common-area maintenance) and operating-expense shares, permitted use, build-out, renewal options, default and remedies, insurance, and often a personal guaranty. Because a business tenant has almost none of the statutory safety net a resident enjoys, the lease itself is the only protection either side gets — which is exactly why careful drafting and counsel review matter.

Complete the fields below to generate a Florida commercial lease agreement tailored to your tenancy. The generator assembles the parties, premises and permitted use, term and renewal, rent and additional rent (CAM), the contract-set deposit, maintenance, assignment, and default and remedy provisions into a signable PDF. Before you commit to a multi-year term, screen the business and its principals; then review the result — and, for anything material or long-term, have counsel review it — before signing.

A Florida commercial lease agreement rents nonresidential property — a storefront, office suite, warehouse bay, or restaurant space — to a business tenant. The single most important thing to understand is what law does not apply. The Florida Residential Landlord and Tenant Act (Chapter 83, Part II) covers apartments and houses; a commercial tenancy is governed instead by Chapter 83, Part I and by ordinary contract law. Part I is short and procedural — it is mostly about the landlord’s lien and how to remove a defaulting tenant — and it deliberately leaves the economic terms to the parties. The Florida landlord-tenant framework therefore gives a commercial tenant far fewer automatic protections than a resident gets, and puts the burden on the lease to spell everything out. If you need a residential periodic tenancy instead, use the Florida month-to-month rental agreement, which is built for Part II.

Because the residential act does not reach commercial space, the governing rule is freedom of contract. Whatever the two businesses agree to — within the ordinary limits of contract law — is generally enforceable, and whatever they leave out, the statute usually will not fill in. There is no statutory deposit cap, no mandatory refund timeline, no implied warranty of habitability, and no standard set of tenant defenses. In their place, Chapter 83, Part I supplies only the enforcement machinery: § 83.08 gives the landlord a lien for unpaid rent on the tenant’s property; §§ 83.10–83.19 set out the distress-for-rent procedure to enforce that lien; and §§ 83.20–83.251 govern removal of a defaulting or holdover tenant. Everything else — rent, escalations, who pays taxes and insurance, maintenance, options, exclusivity — lives in the lease.

That structure cuts both ways. A landlord can negotiate strong remedies and pass through operating costs, but must actually write those terms down or lose them. A tenant can bargain for renewal options, a use that protects its business, and caps on expense pass-throughs, but gets none of that by default. The lease is not a formality layered on top of statutory rights — in a commercial tenancy, the lease very nearly is the law between the parties.

A well-drafted Florida commercial lease works through each of the following, because none of them is supplied by statute:

• Parties and guaranty — the landlord, the tenant entity (often an LLC), and, where the tenant is a business entity, a personal guaranty from an owner so the individual stands behind the rent if the company fails.
• Premises and permitted use — the exact suite, its square footage, and a use clause that limits the tenant to a defined business (and may grant exclusivity in a shopping center).
• Term and renewal — the fixed term, any options to extend, and how renewal rent is set (fixed steps or market).
• Rent and additional rent — base rent, annual escalations, and, in a net lease, the tenant’s share of taxes, insurance, and CAM (common-area maintenance), plus any percentage rent tied to sales.
• Security deposit — a contract-set amount (there is no cap), with the lease stating how it is held, applied, and returned.
• Maintenance — an explicit split of roof, structure, HVAC, interior, and common areas between landlord and tenant.
• Assignment and subletting — whether the tenant may transfer the lease and on what conditions.
• Default and remedies — the events of default, the § 83.20 notices, the § 83.08 lien, and the eviction process.
• Insurance and indemnity — the liability limits the tenant must carry and who bears which risks.

Governing law and the residential carve-out

Section 83.001 states that Part I “applies to nonresidential tenancies and all tenancies not governed by part II.” So the first question is always which part applies: a business tenancy is Part I. The consequence is that the two headline residential protections are unavailable. § 83.49 — which caps and regulates residential deposits and imposes a 15-to-60-day refund process — does not apply, so a commercial deposit is purely a matter of contract. § 83.51 — the implied warranty of habitability requiring the landlord to keep a dwelling livable — does not apply either, so a commercial landlord’s repair duties are only what the lease assigns.

Rent, deposit, and CAM are contract terms

Nothing in Part I sets or limits commercial rent, escalations, late fees, or the security deposit. Landlords commonly require a deposit of two to three months’ rent and often a letter of credit for a larger tenant, but that is market practice, not statute. In a triple-net (NNN) lease the tenant also pays additional rent — its proportionate share of property taxes, building insurance, and CAM — so the lease must define the expense pool, the base year, and the tenant’s percentage to avoid a fight later.

Default notices (§ 83.20)

Part I does prescribe the notices that precede removal. Under § 83.20(2), nonpayment of rent requires 3 days’ written notice “requiring the payment of the rent or the possession of the premises.” Under § 83.20(3), a material breach other than nonpayment requires 15 days’ written notice “requiring the cure of such breach or the possession of the premises.” Under § 83.20(1), simply holding over after the term ends is itself a ground for removal. And under § 83.202, a landlord who accepts the full past-due rent with knowledge of the breach waives the right to evict for it — a trap landlords must watch.

The landlord’s lien and distress for rent (§§ 83.08–83.19)

Section 83.08 gives “every person to whom rent may be due” a lien on the tenant’s property. The lien reaches agricultural products (superior to all other liens), the tenant’s property “usually kept on the premises” (superior to later-acquired liens), and other property from the date of levy. The landlord enforces the lien through distress for rent: filing a verified complaint (§ 83.11), posting a bond at double the amount claimed for the judge to issue a distress writ (§ 83.12), and having the sheriff levy (§ 83.13), with a sale of the distrained property if the claim is proven (§ 83.19). This remedy is unique to the commercial context and has no residential analog.

When a commercial tenant defaults, the landlord’s path runs through Part I. Start with the correct notice — the 3-day pay-or-quit for rent, the 15-day cure notice for other breaches — and serve it by delivery to the tenant or, if the tenant is absent, by posting on the premises. If the notice period expires without cure, the landlord files a possession complaint under § 83.21 describing the premises and the default. Service on the tenant may be by personal delivery, certified mail, or posting; when the summons is posted, judgment cannot enter until at least five days after posting (§ 83.22).

To contest the eviction, the tenant generally must deposit the disputed rent into the court registry under § 83.232 — failing to do so is grounds for a default against the tenant. The court then awards possession under § 83.231, may include money damages if the landlord asked for them, and the clerk issues a writ of possession to the sheriff under § 83.241. The prevailing party recovers costs under § 83.251. Alongside eviction, the landlord may pursue the § 83.08 lien by distress to collect unpaid rent from the tenant’s on-site property. What a landlord may not do is resort to a self-help lockout; the statutory process is the remedy.

• Using a residential form for business space. An apartment lease imports habitability and deposit language that does not apply and omits the CAM, use, and guaranty terms a commercial deal needs.
• Leaving the expense structure vague. “Tenant pays its share of CAM” with no base year, cap, or defined pool is a lawsuit waiting to happen — spell out the math.
• Skipping the personal guaranty. Leasing to a thinly capitalized LLC with no owner guaranty can leave the landlord with an empty judgment.
• Serving the wrong default notice. Using a 3-day notice for a non-rent breach (which needs 15 days under § 83.20(3)), or vice versa, defeats the eviction.
• Accepting late rent mid-eviction. Taking the full past-due amount with knowledge of the breach can waive the default under § 83.202.
• Attempting a self-help lockout. Changing the locks instead of using the § 83.21 process exposes the landlord to damages.

• Pick the right structure and label it — gross, modified gross, or NNN — and define the base year and expense pool so additional rent is calculable.
• Write a tight use clause that protects the tenant’s business and, in a center, consider an exclusivity provision.
• Get a personal guaranty when the tenant is an LLC or new corporation, signed and dated with the lease.
• Allocate every repair category — roof, structure, HVAC, interior, common areas — because no warranty of habitability fills the gaps.
• Require insurance and indemnity with the landlord named as an additional insured.
• State the deposit terms in full — amount, how held, how applied, and when returned — since no statute supplies defaults.
• Screen the business and its principals before signing — verify credit, entity standing, and background through tenant screening before you commit a multi-year term.
• Have counsel review anything long-term, high-value, or unusual.

Florida recognizes electronic signatures under the Uniform Electronic Transactions Act, so a commercial lease executed through a reputable e-signature service is as binding as ink when both businesses agreed to sign electronically. However it is executed, each party — and any guarantor — should receive a fully executed copy, and the landlord should keep the signed original, the guaranty, and every addendum together for the life of the tenancy plus the limitations period on a rent or damage claim.

Do a documented condition walkthrough at delivery, noting the premises’ state and any landlord build-out obligations, so a later dispute over restoration or the deposit has a factual record. Calendar the key dates the lease creates — rent escalations, the annual CAM reconciliation, insurance renewals, and any option-exercise deadlines — because in a commercial lease a missed option window can cost the tenant its renewal, and a missed reconciliation can cost the landlord a pass-through. Planning those deadlines into the agreement, and diarizing them, avoids the disputes that most commonly land commercial landlords and tenants in court.

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