Why does the lease language matter so much for maintenance?
Every maintenance request that comes in gets measured against your lease. The lease is the rulebook, and the defaults that apply when it is silent vary by state.
Under O.C.G.A. § 44-7-13, if a Georgia commercial lease is silent on repair obligations, the landlord is on the hook for all necessary repairs. In Wisconsin, Wis. Stat. § 704.07 — Landlord and Tenant Maintenance Obligations sets a parallel default: the landlord keeps common areas, structural elements, plumbing, electrical, and HVAC in good repair unless the lease expressly shifts those duties to the tenant. If you operate in another state, check your state's commercial landlord-tenant statute directly, because the default can fall entirely on the landlord, entirely on the tenant, or split by category depending on how your legislature wrote it.
The word choice inside the lease matters just as much as whether a duty is assigned at all. If your lease says a tenant must "maintain" the HVAC in their bay, that likely means filter changes and scheduled inspections, not a compressor replacement. If the lease does not say "repair and replace," you may be paying for that compressor. That distinction carries real dollar consequences in a flex park where every bay has its own roll-up door, rooftop unit, and electrical panel.
Pull your lease template and mark every maintenance clause. Note exactly which words are used: maintain, repair, replace. That review is what tells you who owes what before the phone rings.
How do you separate landlord work from tenant work when a request comes in?
The split follows the lease, but a few categories are almost always landlord-side in a multi-tenant flex park.
According to a standard industrial multi-tenant lease on file with the SEC, the landlord is responsible for operating, repairing, maintaining, and replacing common areas: parking areas, loading and unloading areas, trash areas, roadways, drainage systems, and exterior signs. Those costs flow back to tenants through CAM charges. CAM, or common area maintenance, is the pool of shared operating costs that tenants reimburse proportionally based on their leased square footage.
Tenant-side work under the same lease form covers damage caused by the tenant's own action or inaction, and ordinary routine maintenance of equipment inside their bay. Under Wis. Stat. § 704.07 — Landlord and Tenant Maintenance Obligations, the commercial tenant's default obligations include repair and remediation for damage they caused and routine maintenance of plumbing, electrical, and equipment furnished with the leased premises.
When a request comes in, ask two questions. First: is this inside the bay or in a common area? Second: did the tenant cause it or is it wear and tear? A tenant who backed a forklift into a roll-up door pays for that door. A roll-up door that failed because the spring wore out over ten years is a different conversation, and your lease language decides who writes that check.
What if the tenant refuses to handle work that is their responsibility?
Do not let it sit. A broken roll-up door or a backed-up floor drain affects the whole building, not just one bay.
A standard industrial multi-tenant lease on file with the SEC gives the landlord the right to step in and perform the tenant's unfulfilled obligation, then charge the tenant the full cost of repairs plus a 10% administrative fee, payable immediately on demand. That right only exists if your lease contains that clause. If yours does not, add it at the next renewal. Without it, your only remedy is a breach-of-lease proceeding, which takes months and costs more than the repair.
What does a workable request routine look like for a small team?
You do not need software to run this. You need a consistent process.
BOMA International's Proactive Maintenance Guidebook for Industrial Properties separates maintenance into reactive work (fix what broke), preventive work (scheduled inspections before things break), and predictive work (monitoring to catch failures early). For a small-team flex park, reactive and preventive are the two you build first.
Here is how a practical routine runs. Every request gets logged the same day it comes in, by phone, email, or walk-in. The log entry names the bay number, the date, what the tenant reported, and who took the call. You categorize it as landlord-side or tenant-side. If it is landlord-side, you schedule the work and note the expected completion date. If it is tenant-side, you send the tenant a written notice that day citing the lease clause and giving them a deadline to act.
Response time matters beyond courtesy. A delayed response in a flex park can disrupt deliveries, building access, and employee safety, according to research on multi-tenant industrial properties. Tenants who cannot receive freight or operate their roll-up door will call their attorney before they call you a second time.
For entry to make repairs, the California Department of Real Estate's reference guide notes that a landlord's right to enter for maintenance should be spelled out in the lease. Without that clause, you may only be permitted access after reasonable advance notice, even for urgent work. Make sure your lease has an entry-for-maintenance clause with a defined notice period and an emergency-access carve-out.
How do you track common area maintenance costs for CAM reconciliation?
Every repair order for a common area needs a receipt attached and a category code: parking, lighting, loading dock, or drainage. At year-end, you total by category and reconcile against each tenant's CAM estimate. BOMA 2025 for Industrial Buildings (ANSI/BOMA Z65.2-2025) defines rentable area, usable area, and common areas for industrial and flex buildings. Those definitions determine which spaces count as common area for CAM purposes, so confirm your lease definition matches the measurement standard you use.
Keep every invoice. Tenants audit CAM charges, and a missing receipt means you absorb the cost.
What should you do next?
- Pull your current lease template and highlight every word that describes a maintenance or repair obligation, noting whether it says maintain, repair, or replace for each item.
- Check your state's commercial landlord-tenant statute to confirm what default applies when your lease is silent, because the answer differs by state.
- Add a landlord-step-in clause if yours does not have one, giving you the right to perform tenant obligations and charge cost plus a 10% administrative fee.
- Add an explicit entry-for-maintenance clause with a notice period and an emergency-access carve-out.
- Build a one-page request log covering bay number, date received, description, landlord or tenant responsibility, action taken, and date closed.
- Set a written response-time standard, such as acknowledgment within one business day and a completion date communicated within three, and put that standard in your tenant welcome packet so expectations are set before the first request comes in.
- Start a preventive maintenance calendar for common-area items: parking lot lighting, loading dock levelers, and drainage cleanouts. Schedule each item annually at minimum and document every inspection.
Where does Propty fit?
In the Propty customer app, customers send repair requests with photos, and the repair desk shows which trades you have an approved repair person for.