Your new landlord can — and should — help

Q. I’m about to apply for permits and rent a store for my church to hold services. We’re a small congregation with not a lot of funds, and we need to make this as simple as possible. So far our landlord has been very good to us. He offered us three months to get our permits and move in, but I’m concerned, as the one who is doing all the work to get this task done, that we’ll run out of time. The Buildings Department says we have to go through a planning review before we can apply for permits, and that could take a lot more time than we have, according to what has been explained to me. Can you give me some advice on what to do to keep this process moving and make our deadline?

A. You’re going to need more than a little divine intervention to get through this process. Your landlord knows this, but may not be saying so. I have many years of experience seeing building owners stay in the background, watching another tenant flounder instead of working with you to get this done. As long as that rent money starts coming in after the three months, it seems landlords often don’t actively participate in getting your rental operational. Of course, this isn’t true of all landlords, but I usually have to pry information from them instead of having it openly handed over right at the beginning, and that wastes time for you.

I do have steady landlord clients who know to provide property surveys, plans and pertinent data from records and tax bills so the renter loses little time, is up and running and paying rent. You’d think landlords would want a good, strong, able-paying renter and would want to make things happen. Remember, the owner is the one responsible for the property, not you, no matter what legal documents between you say. A municipality looks to the owner for signatures on your paperwork, whom to issue violations to, etc.