Funding and implementing a lease compliance programme

Abstract

This paper seeks to offer a case study of overseeing lease compliance functions for governmental tenants housed in commercial lease office space. Lease compliance is defined as appropriate landlord and public tenant performance in leased facilities, which includes ensuring tenant satisfaction and tenant adherence to facility guidelines, as well as landlord responsiveness to facility issues that occur. The Maryland Department of General Services (DGS) developed an initiative several years ago to fund, implement and design a lease compliance programme to ensure that landlords are properly maintaining commercial office space for state functions and that state agencies and their clients are adhering to DGS tenant policies in commercial facilities. This paper shares the fee structure, billing process, design of the programme and functions of the compliance team which have helped provide financial oversight and ensure the health and safety of state employees and visitors. The lease compliance programme includes training of on-site tenant agency staff to help monitor building conditions and resolve minor facility issues that occur. Additionally, the programme also established a rating system for facility issues depending upon the severity of the event that has occurred in relation to life, health and safety of the employees and visitors at the site. The assigned ratings of ‘emergency’, ‘priority’ and ‘routine’ determine what action must be taken by a tenant agency and how quickly a response will be provided by DGS. This information was shared at a National Association of State Facility Administrators’ Conference in May 2023.