Free Connecticut Commercial Lease Agreement Template

A Connecticut commercial lease agreement rents non-residential property — a retail unit, an office, a warehouse, a restaurant space — to a tenant who will trade from it. Connecticut’s summary process statute lists commercial nonpayment as its own ground for eviction, separate from the residential one.

That separation is worth understanding before signing. It removes a cushion that residential tenants get, and it starts the clock the day rent is late.

One rule shapes how the lease is executed, and another shapes how it ends.

Writing, Witnessing, and Recording

Conn. Gen. Stat. § 47-19 reaches any lease of a building, land, or tenement for life, for a term exceeding one year, or containing a renewal right or an option to purchase. Such a lease is not effectual against anyone besides the landlord, the tenant, and their heirs, successors, administrators, and executors unless it is in writing, executed, attested, acknowledged, and recorded in the same manner as a deed of land.

There is an alternative to recording the whole document. The section allows a notice of lease, executed and recorded the same way, setting out the parties’ names and addresses as given in the lease, a reference to the lease and its execution date, the term with its commencement and termination dates, a description of the property, a note of any extension or renewal right, and a note of any purchase option.

The Statutory Notice to Quit

Conn. Gen. Stat. § 47a-23(b) prescribes a form. The notice identifies the premises by address, states the date by which the tenant must quit possession, and gives the reason using the statutory language or words of similar import, along with the date and place of signing.

Three days, and no grace period first. Conn. Gen. Stat. § 47a-23(a) requires notice to quit at least three days before the termination of the lease, or before the time the notice specifies for quitting possession.

The commercial distinction sits in the list of grounds. Subparagraph (a)(1)(D) covers nonpayment of rent within the grace period that § 47a-15a provides for residential property. Subparagraph (a)(1)(E) covers nonpayment of rent when due for commercial property, with no grace period attached. Other grounds in the same list reach a business tenancy too: lapse of time, an express stipulation in the lease, and violation of the lease or of rules adopted under § 47a-9.

Service changed recently. Under § 47a-23(c), as revised in 2025, an attested copy goes out through a proper officer, and for commercial property it is either left for each lessee at the place of the commercial establishment or served on the parties the way complaints are served in ordinary civil actions. Delivery may be made on any day of the week.

1. Agree the business terms: rent and increases, the term, renewal rights, and who carries taxes, insurance, and repairs.
2. Execute the lease with the formalities § 47-19 requires if the term exceeds a year or carries a renewal or purchase right — writing, attestation, and acknowledgment.
3. Record either the lease or a notice of lease with the town clerk, so the term binds parties beyond the landlord and tenant.
4. Write in a cure period for late rent, since no statutory grace period applies to commercial space.
5. Hand over an executed counterpart to each side and file your own with the recording receipt.

Beyond the execution formalities, the terms of a Connecticut commercial lease agreement are negotiated. Work through:

• Legal names of landlord and tenant, and the entity behind each signature.
• A description of the premises detailed enough to support a notice of lease.
• Rent, the due date, and the mechanism for increases.
• Commencement and termination dates, plus any renewal or purchase rights.
• Who pays taxes, insurance, and utilities, and who repairs what.
• Permitted use, and whether assignment or subletting requires consent.
• A cure period and default procedure, plus where notices go.