Commercial Lease Basics

How can we help empower small business owners with valuable information about commercial leases?

In Los Angeles, there are many small business owners – especially immigrant, mom + pop businesses – without official commercial leases. We learned from our Small Business Support Program along Avalon Blvd in Wilmington that some business owners are not sure how to negotiate their lease or why a lease is important.

As part of our small business support work in Wilmington, the Legal Aid Foundation of Los Angeles (LAFLA) led an informational presentation and workshop about commercial leases and their importance. Informed by that presentation, our team wrote and designed an informational booklet that consolidates and summarizes useful information about commercial leases – to read the full document, click here! Our hope is that this document will disseminate helpful information to small business owners around the city who may not otherwise have access to these resources.

The booklet is available in English, Spanish, and Korean. We’ve partnered with a group of amazing organizations (including SAJE, ELACC, CRCD, LAFPC, LURN, T.R.U.S.T. South LA, LA LISC, and CD15) who are serving as community distributors of the booklet. We also want to thank Koreatown Youth + Community Center (KYCC) and Los Angeles Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LA LISC) for sponsoring some of the printing costs.