Free Massachusetts Commercial Lease Agreement Template

A Massachusetts commercial lease agreement rents non-residential property — a storefront, an office, a warehouse, a restaurant space — to a tenant who will trade from it. Chapter 186 of the General Laws covers estates for years and at will, and it carries a section written specifically for premises used for other than dwelling purposes.

That section is § 11A, and it works differently from the residential provision beside it. What your lease says can replace what the statute would otherwise supply.

The commercial rent provision is short, and every clause in it matters.

Two Routes to Termination

G.L. c. 186, § 11A applies on the neglect or refusal by a tenant to pay rent due under a written lease of premises for other than dwelling purposes. The landlord is entitled to terminate the lease either in accordance with the provisions of the lease, or — in the absence of such lease provisions — by at least fourteen days’ notice to quit given in writing to the tenant.

Those are alternatives, not steps. A lease with its own termination provisions takes the first route; a lease silent on the point falls back to fourteen days.

The Right to Cure, and Where It Does Not Apply

Where the landlord terminates by the fourteen-day route, § 11A gives the tenant a right to cure. The tenant may pay or tender to the landlord or the landlord’s attorney all rent then due, with interest and the costs of the action, on or before the day the answer is due in an action to recover possession.

The section then draws the line expressly: that right to cure applies only to termination by the fourteen-day notice, and does not apply to termination in accordance with the provisions of the lease.

No, and the lease decides it. Because § 11A withholds the statutory cure right from a termination made under the lease’s own provisions, a Massachusetts commercial lease agreement that sets out its own default and termination procedure changes the tenant’s position materially.

For a landlord, drafting those provisions is the difference between a tenant who can pay late and stay, and one who cannot. For a tenant, the absence of a negotiated cure period is not a neutral gap — it removes a protection the statute would otherwise have supplied.

Estates at will run on a different clock. Under G.L. c. 186, § 12, an estate at will may be determined by either party on three months’ written notice; where the rent reserved is payable at periods of less than three months, notice is sufficient if it equals the interval between payment days or thirty days, whichever is longer. Such a notice may include an offer of a new tenancy on different terms without losing its validity.

1. Settle rent, escalation, the term, renewal rights, and how taxes, insurance, and repairs are allocated.
2. Decide deliberately whether to include your own termination provisions, since § 11A treats that choice as displacing the fourteen-day route.
3. If you are the tenant, negotiate an express cure period rather than relying on the statute.
4. Put the lease in writing, because § 11A applies to a written lease of non-dwelling premises.
5. Execute the lease and keep the default and notice provisions somewhere accessible.

Chapter 186 addresses termination rather than terms, so a Massachusetts commercial lease agreement should cover:

• Legal names of landlord and tenant, and the entity behind each signature.
• A description locating the premises and any common areas.
• Rent, the payment interval, the due date, and how increases are set.
• The term and its expiry, plus renewal rights and holdover terms.
• A default and termination clause, drafted knowing what § 11A attaches to it.
• Any cure period you want the tenant to have.
• Allocation of taxes, insurance, and utilities, and consent terms for assignment or subletting.