Free Michigan Commercial Lease Agreement Template

A Michigan commercial lease agreement rents non-residential property — a storefront, an office, a warehouse, a workshop — to a tenant who will run a business there. Michigan splits the rules across two places: MCL 554.134 governs how a tenancy is terminated, and the summary proceedings sections of the Revised Judicature Act govern how possession is recovered.

The termination section is the one that rewards attention, because the notice it requires depends entirely on how the tenancy was set up.

MCL 554.134 scales notice to the tenancy, and the range is wide.

Estates at Will and by Sufferance

Under MCL 554.134(1), an estate at will or by sufferance may be terminated by a notice to quit of one month. Where rent is payable at intervals of less than three months, the notice period is sufficient if it equals the interval between times of payment.

The subsection also removes a technical trap. A notice is not void because it names a termination day that does not line up with the start or end of a rental period; instead the notice terminates the tenancy at the end of a period equal in length to the interval between times of payment.

Unpaid Rent

MCL 554.134(2) is short and broad: where a tenant neglects or refuses to pay rent on a lease at will or otherwise, the landlord may terminate the tenancy by giving the tenant a written seven-day notice to quit.

Tenancies From Year to Year

MCL 554.134(3) allows either party to terminate a tenancy from year to year by a notice to quit given at any time. The notice then terminates the lease at the expiration of one year from the time it was served.

That is the longest notice period in the section by a wide margin, and it follows automatically from the shape of the tenancy rather than from anything either side chose at the time of the notice.

Anywhere from seven days to a full year. The spread in MCL 554.134 is unusually wide, and a Michigan commercial lease agreement lands somewhere on it depending on how the term was written.

Seven days applies where the issue is unpaid rent. One month, or the rent interval where rent is payable more often than quarterly, applies to an estate at will or by sufferance. A year applies where the arrangement is a tenancy from year to year, counted from service rather than from any anniversary.

Recovering possession is a separate step. MCL 600.5714 authorises summary proceedings where a tenant holds over after the time stated in a demand for possession issued under that section, or after the time stated in a notice to quit issued under MCL 554.134.

1. Fix the rent, the escalation mechanism, the term length, and where insurance and repair duties fall.
2. Decide the tenancy shape deliberately, because MCL 554.134 attaches very different notice to at-will, periodic, and year-to-year arrangements.
3. Set the rent payment interval knowing it can shorten the notice needed under subsection (1).
4. Write an express holdover clause so the tenancy does not drift into a year-to-year footing.
5. Execute the lease and record the term and notice mechanics alongside it.

MCL 554.134 governs notice, so a Michigan commercial lease agreement carries everything else:

• Legal names of landlord and tenant, and the entity behind each signature.
• A description of the unit, floor, or yard the tenant actually takes.
• Rent, the payment interval, and how and when it rises.
• A definite term with start and end dates, plus renewal rights.
• An express holdover provision naming what the tenancy becomes.
• Allocation of property taxes, insurance, utilities, and each class of repair.
• Permitted use, assignment and subletting consent, and where notices are served.