Dentaltown December 2019 - 80

He was lost in that reverie when his train of thought
was interrupted by a postal carrier who walked in and
announced that he had a certified letter for which John
needed to sign. John had received certified letters before
and was always leery of what they might portend, so he
had some trepidation as he tore open the envelope. His
fear was justified: The letter from his landlord informed
John that, because he hadn't given the landlord written
notice of his election to renew his lease some months
earlier, as and when required under his lease, he was
being kicked out of his space and would have to vacate
his office at the end of the month to make way for a
new tenant.

You snooze, you lose ... your office
John was startled, confused, angry and terrified! He
had made an egregious error: He had lost track of his
renewal option timing and now not only was he being
evicted from the space and location that he had built
out and branded at great expense, but he was also at
risk of losing all of his patients-his business!-if he
didn't have a place within which to practice dentistry.
The rest of the story is not pleasant. John begged
and pleaded with his landlord to let him stay, but the
landlord had already signed a lease with a new tenant.
John hired an attorney to fight for him, to no avail,
and as it became evident that he was fighting a losing
battle, he scrambled to find a new office space. After
several weeks of frantic searching, he finally found a sad
building a half-hour away with no visibility, inadequate
parking and a too-small space that needed total, very
costly renovations. With no alternative in sight and
desperate not to lose his patient base, John reluctantly
signed a new lease for a space for which he knew he
would someday regret settling.
He ended up losing a large number of patients
because he had no place to work for nearly four months

80

DECEMBER 2019 // dentaltown.com

and had moved quite far away from many of them. He
spent a major portion of his retirement funds building
out the new space and the next 10 years trying to
recover from this disastrous turn of events. Sadly, this
lapse, this failure to know and understand and protect
his occupancy rights, continues to haunt his financial
world to this day. Needless to say, sailing vacations are
no longer anywhere on his horizon.

Keep your eye on the prize-your lease
Unfortunately, far too often, I see this scenario unfold
among dentists who sign a lease and then forget about
it. They don't realize that the lease memorializes the
rights and obligations to which they and the landlord
mutually agreed, and that the terms and provisions
in that document are not mere suggestions, as too
many believe at their peril; rather, they are contractual
requirements that strictly govern the occupancy with
very serious legal and business consequences for those
who carelessly choose to treat the lease as just a casual
arrangement. And as John's unfortunate experience
illustrates, not paying attention to the lease requirements
may put all of your life's hard work in jeopardy. Could
all of this have been prevented? Absolutely. If John had
paid better-any-attention to his lease, he would not
have let his occupancy rights, his retirement funds and
his lifelong dreams slip away.
All the benefits of having a successful marketing
program, a loyal and dedicated staff, current knowledge
about your craft and state-of-the-art equipment mean
nothing if you put your occupancy rights in jeopardy
by failing to fulfill your obligations or assert your
contractual rights as and when specified in your lease. So
take a lesson from John, and don't put your hard-earned
business in jeopardy. Instead, know and understand
your lease and treat it with the respect that it deserves
to protect your office occupancy rights. ■
http://www.dentaltown.com
Dentaltown December 2019

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