Free Colorado Commercial Lease Agreement Template

A Colorado commercial lease agreement rents non-residential property — a storefront, an office, a warehouse, a workshop — to a tenant who will run a business there. Colorado’s eviction statute names nonresidential agreements separately throughout, giving them their own, much shorter notice periods.

Those carve-outs are the practical difference between commercial and residential space here. Nearly everything else is left to what the parties negotiate.

Two sections of the Forcible Entry and Detainer article do most of the work.

Ending a Tenancy With No Fixed End Date

C.R.S. § 13-40-107(1) scales written notice to the length of the tenancy. A tenancy of one year or longer takes 91 days. Six months or longer but under a year takes 28 days. One month or longer but under six months takes 21 days. A tenancy of a week or longer but under a month, or a tenancy at will, takes three days, and anything shorter than a week takes one day.

Subsection (2) sets what the notice must say: a description of the property and the particular time the tenancy will end, signed by the party giving it, or their agent or attorney. Subsection (4) removes the requirement altogether where the term is, by agreement, to end at a time certain.

Who Counts as a Tenant at Will

Under subsection (3), anyone in possession of real property with the owner’s assent is presumed to be a tenant at will until the contrary is shown. For an occupier with no written lease, that presumption sets the three-day notice period by default.

Three days, on nearly every default ground. C.R.S. § 13-40-104(1)(d) gives a residential tenant 10 days’ written notice to pay rent or give up possession, then carves out nonresidential agreements at three days. The same section adds that no agreement may contain a tenant’s waiver of that notice requirement.

Subsection (1)(e) repeats the pattern for a breach of any material condition or covenant: 10 days for residential, three days for a nonresidential agreement, with the notice requiring either compliance or delivery of possession. Where a tenant has already been served over the same covenant and breaches it again, subsection (1)(e.5) terminates a nonresidential tenancy three days after service of written notice.

Holding over is treated separately again. Subsection (1)(c) makes continued possession of nonresidential property after the term expires, or after either party has terminated, an unlawful detention in its own right.

1. Settle the business terms: rent and increases, the term, renewal rights, and who pays taxes, insurance, and maintenance.
2. State a definite end date if you want to avoid the § 13-40-107 notice ladder, since a term ending at a time certain needs no notice to quit.
3. Negotiate the cure period you actually want, working up from the statutory three days.
4. Set out a notice address for each side, and how notice is to be delivered.
5. Sign, then give each party a copy and keep yours with your business records.

Colorado says little about the contents of a Colorado commercial lease agreement, so the document carries the weight:

• Legal names of landlord and tenant, including the entity behind the signature.
• A description of the premises specific enough to identify the unit and any shared space.
• Rent, when it falls due, and how it changes over the term.
• A definite term and end date, plus renewal rights and holdover terms.
• Allocation of taxes, insurance, utilities, and each class of repair.
• Permitted use, and the conditions on assignment or subletting.
• Default and cure provisions, written against the statutory three-day baseline.