Imagine a new tenant in your building paying 20% less per square metre than you do. On top of that, the landlord offered them an attractive incentive package and a budget to fit out the space to a high standard. You got a symbolic few months of rent-free time and a small allowance to "refresh" the office. Sounds unfair? It is everyday reality on the Polish office market, where loyalty is rarely rewarded and renewing "on the same terms as before" is one of the most expensive mistakes a company can make.
As advisors supporting clients through renegotiations from A to Z, we have put together five things that decide whether your office is an asset that powers the business or a cost that quietly drains your budget. Let's start with the one that surprises almost every client.
1The financial paradox - are you paying more than a new tenant?
Most landlords propose a so-called passing rent on renewal, meaning you simply continue paying your current rate. Sounds fair? Nothing could be further from the truth.
In recent years, rent indexation indices have grown far faster than the real market value of office space. As a result, after a few years your rate is probably higher than the one the landlord offers to new tenants entering the very same building. The renegotiation process is the ideal moment to reverse this gap and negotiate a reset of your base rent back to the market level. This is your strongest starting point - and one of the few moments when you hold a real advantage.
2Service charge under the microscope: who really pays to run the building?
Operating costs are the "silent killer" of a budget. Rising energy and labour prices push the bills up, but the question is: does the property manager run the building well, and are your charges calculated correctly? In many cases - they are not.
Expert tip
Pay particular attention to the settlements if the building has changed owner or property manager, or has recently been refurbished. These are critical moments when errors most often arise - and the tenant most often pays for them.
A regular audit of the settlements - conducted even several years back - very often ends in refunds for our clients. But that is not the only benefit. Verifying the charges today is also a safeguard for the future: it lets you tighten the wording in the new lease and remove room for abuse before it happens.
3Technical audit: what is hiding under the building's "hood"?
The technical condition of the building directly affects your safety, comfort at work and - just as importantly - your wallet. Many systems wear out in ways invisible to the naked eye: the air conditioning runs, but inefficiently; the lifts work, but break down; the lights are on, but use twice as much power as they should.
Upgrades to HVAC or lifts are capital expenditure (Capex) that should raise the building's value and fall on the landlord's pocket, not your service charge. A professional technical auditor knows what to ask and where to look. With a finished report in hand you are not asking for repairs - you are setting the conditions needed to keep your office up to standard, with hard arguments to enforce them at the negotiating table.
4A functional audit of your space
Renewing a lease is not only a financial matter - it is also the best moment to ask yourself: does our office actually work the way it should?
Many companies get used to the flaws of their space: a meeting room with terrible acoustics, an open space where the sales team sits next to people who need to concentrate, an AV system that has to be restarted before every meeting. These problems become invisible, but they have a real impact on productivity.
Before signing a new lease, run a proper audit - talk to your teams and ask what they are missing and how their needs have changed. Perhaps, after moving to a hybrid model, project rooms and phone booths now matter more than a sprawling open space. Or maybe the company is growing and you will run out of desks within a year. Check the specifics: do the acoustics and AV systems meet hybrid-work standards? Does the layout reflect how the organisation works today - not three years ago?
It is worth reviewing this with a three-to-five-year horizon, accounting for changes in headcount, the needs of individual departments and planned technologies.
A key fact many tenants do not know: the cost of modernisation does not have to fall on your budget. Property owners would rather invest in adapting the space for an existing tenant than bear the cost of a vacancy. Improving acoustics, upgrading meeting rooms, reworking the layout - all of this can be included in the fit-out budget negotiated as part of the new lease.
This is also the right moment to secure an expansion option (a right of first refusal on additional space) or - if you see room for optimisation - to renegotiate the leased area downwards. In short: before you sign, make sure the office works for you, not the other way around.
5Competing offers - even if you are not planning to move
This is probably the most common mistake made when renewing a lease: the tenant assumes they are staying in their current office, so they do not check what the market offers. Yet the absence of alternative offers means the absence of a real negotiating position - and your landlord senses it perfectly.
Surveying the market and preparing a short list of competing locations is not a declaration that you are moving out. It is a negotiating tool. When the landlord sees that you are analysing concrete alternatives, holding talks with other building owners and comparing terms, their motivation to make a genuinely good offer rises dramatically. As long as they believe you will stay regardless of the terms, they have no reason to stick their neck out.
It is worth remembering that well-chosen alternatives can surprise you. Often offers initially picked purely as a benchmark turn out to be attractive enough - a better location, a more modern building, more favourable financial terms - that tenants decide to change their plans and choose a new location.
Your advisor should help you build this competitive environment. But pay attention to one thing: make sure they act solely in your interest. On the commercial real estate market, conflicts of interest are not rare - it happens that an advisor represents the tenant and the landlord at the same time. Make sure your consultant is on one side of the table: yours.
In summary - time is money. Literally.
The key to the best results is timing - starting the conversation at the right moment. Depending on the size of your office, an effective renegotiation process should begin 12 to 24 months before the lease expires, sometimes even earlier. Only that much lead time allows for proper audits, gathering offers and building real competitive pressure. Whoever starts too late risks negotiating from a weaker position.
Remember: as a tenant you hold an enormous asset - the stability and continuity of rental income the landlord depends on. The advisor's role is to help you turn that asset into concrete savings and an office that supports your business growth for years to come, rather than holding it back with invisible costs.
