Introduction to Commercial Lease Transactions

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Course overview
4 LREC Elective CE Credit Hours. A practical, attorney-authored deep dive into commercial lease transactions for Louisiana real estate agents. Covers lease types, key clauses, tenant and landlord rights, negotiation strategies, and common pitfalls. Written by Everett R. Fineran, Esq. — Louisiana attorney and licensed broker.
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What's included?

  • 7 Chapters
  • 1 Certification
  • 340 Questions
  • 25 Video
  • 32 PDF

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4 LREC Elective CE Hours · Louisiana

Introduction to Commercial Lease Transactions

Commercial lease transactions explained from the ground up — NNN math, CAM reconciliation, the letter of intent (LOI), and the Louisiana-specific rules — written by a Louisiana attorney who also carries a broker's license.

Enroll · $79 See the curriculum

LREC-approved · Counts toward your annual elective requirement · Certificate issued on completion

LREC Approved Self-Paced
$79 · one-time

Or bundle with Course 2 for $129 · save $29

Enroll now
  • CE hours4 Elective
  • FormatSelf-paced online
  • Lessons7 (with audio + interactives)
  • Time to complete~4 hours
  • CertificateAuto-issued
  • AccessSix months

Real expertise. No filler.

If you want a cheap, click-through course that you skim while making dinner — this isn't it. The commercial lease deals you'll work on involve hundreds of thousands of dollars in tenant exposure and clauses that quietly outlive the people who signed them. The agents who get paid like specialists know how those clauses actually work. This course is built for that agent.

— Everett R. Fineran, Esq., Author

What you'll actually walk away with

Skills you can use on Monday's deal

Not "you will gain awareness of." Concrete, lease-specific tools your residential CE never taught you.

1

Read a lease in the order that actually matters

Which clauses kill deals, which ones quietly leak money for years, and which ones nobody enforces — so you can flag the right two pages instead of all forty.

2

Talk economic terms like the developers in the room

Base rent vs. operating expenses, gross-ups, pass-throughs, what CAM actually means, NNN math, free rent recapture — and when a "lower" rent actually costs the tenant more.

3

Spot the use-restriction and exclusivity traps

Why a benign-sounding permitted-use clause can lock your client out of their own pivot, and where co-tenancy and exclusives are negotiable.

4

Negotiate expansion, ROFO and ROFR rights

Side-by-side comparison of right-of-first-offer (ROFO) vs. right-of-first-refusal (ROFR) — including the letter of intent (LOI) language that gets these rights into your client's deal — and how to choose the one that actually serves your side.

5

Push back on repair and service obligations

HVAC capex, structural carve-outs, and the language that decides whether your tenant pays $4,000 or $40,000 when something fails in year seven.

6

Apply Louisiana-specific rules correctly

Agency disclosure under LREC Rule 3703 in commercial deals, civil-code peculiarities, and the spots where Louisiana materially diverges from common-law states.

Curriculum

Seven lessons. No padding.

Every lesson opens with a short "Listen first" audio, then a tight ebook walkthrough, an interactive where useful, and a 5-question knowledge check (pass at 4/5).

1
The Commercial Lease Transaction
Foundations · how commercial differs from residential
  • How commercial leasing differs, and what that means for you
  • The players: who does what
  • The transaction timeline and the agent's role in it
  • How to compare spaces: total occupancy cost (interactive calculator)
2
The RFP and Letter of Intent
From the first proposal to a signed LOI
  • The RFP: the deal starts here, and what goes in it
  • Reading the landlord's response: the negotiation process
  • What a letter of intent is and what it should cover
  • Binding vs. non-binding LOI, and the exclusivity clause
  • From LOI to lease: the agent's role continues
3
Understanding Rent
Base rent, NNN, and CAM, with real numbers
  • Base rent: the starting number (interactive rent calculator)
  • Rentable vs. usable square footage
  • The three most common lease structures
  • NNN leases: what the tenant is actually paying
  • CAM charges: a highly negotiated item
  • Percentage rent
4
Economic Terms: Security Deposits, TI Allowances, and Services
The money terms beyond rent
  • Security deposits: cash vs. letter of credit
  • Burndown provisions and guaranties
  • Tenant improvement allowances and the work letter
  • Abated rent and lease vs. rent commencement
  • Landlord services: standard vs. extra cost
5
Permitted Use, Exclusive Use, and Build-Out
Use clauses, exclusives, ROFO vs. ROFR, and delay remedies
  • Permitted use, narrow vs. broad
  • Exclusive use clauses
  • Expansion rights, ROFO vs. ROFR
  • Build-out delay remedies
6
Repairs, Services, and Landlord Obligations
Who fixes what, and who pays
  • Who fixes what: the basic allocation
  • The HVAC trap
  • CAM pass-through repair costs
  • La. Civ. Code art. 2694 and self-help rights
7
What Residential Rules Apply in Commercial Transactions
The Louisiana-specific lens that ties the course together
  • The residential-to-commercial comparison
  • No standard purchase or lease agreement
  • The property disclosure document: not required in commercial
  • Agency disclosure: always required
  • Tenant representation agreements: not mandated, but worth using
Why this course costs what it costs

Specialist training, priced like specialist training

The $10 mandatory-hour courses serve a purpose — staying compliant. This isn't that.

Authored by an attorney-broker

Not a CE shop that licensed somebody else's slides. Every lesson, audio, and interactive in this course was drafted by Everett R. Fineran, Esq. — a Louisiana attorney who is also a licensed broker.

Built for working agents

Plain language. Real clauses. Specific numbers. Each lesson opens with a short audio so you can listen on a drive between showings, then study the page when you're back at the desk.

Counts as elective CE

4 LREC-approved elective hours toward your annual Louisiana real estate license renewal. Certificate is generated automatically when you finish.

About the instructor

Everett R. Fineran, Esq.

Everett is a Louisiana attorney and a licensed Louisiana real estate broker. He serves as Assistant General Counsel of POOLCORP (NASDAQ: POOL), the world's largest wholesale distributor of pool supplies, where he directs commercial leasing and development across more than 400 locations. Commercial leases there are not theory — they are the operating substrate of a national distribution business.

He founded Fineran CE to teach Louisiana agents the parts of the work that the standard residential curriculum doesn't reach: commercial leases, complex transactions, and the Louisiana-specific rules that make this state different.

Louisiana Attorney Licensed LA Broker CDEI Certified LREC-Approved Provider
Save with the bundle

Want to knock out all 8 elective hours at once?

Commercial Lease 1 + Commercial Lease 2: Rights & Remedies

Two full courses, 8 LREC elective hours total. The second covers what happens when a lease goes sideways — landlord default, tenant default, eviction in Louisiana, and the negotiation tactics that resolve disputes before they hit a courtroom.

Add bundle to cart
$158
$129
SAVE $29
FAQ

Questions worth answering

Does this count toward my Louisiana CE requirement?

Yes. The course is approved by the Louisiana Real Estate Commission (LREC) for 4 elective continuing education hours. Your certificate is issued automatically when you finish the final exam and is also reported to LREC.

How long do I have to complete it?

You have six months from enrollment. The course itself runs about four hours of content. Most agents finish it in two or three sittings.

Is this for tenant reps or for listing brokers?

Both. The course is written from a neutral posture — every key clause is examined from the legitimate interests of both sides. You'll come out better at representing whichever side of the table you're on.

What if I've never done a commercial lease deal?

That's exactly who this is for. The course assumes residential-deal fluency and walks you up from there. You won't need a law degree, but you'll leave able to read a lease the way one looks.

What is CAM in a commercial lease?

CAM stands for "common area maintenance" — the operating costs a landlord passes through to tenants in a net or modified lease (typically property taxes, insurance, and shared-area upkeep). Course 1 walks through how CAM is calculated, what's gross-up'd, and how to spot the reconciliation tricks that quietly add 6–12% to a tenant's annual occupancy cost. Covered in Lesson 4.

What is a Letter of Intent (LOI) in commercial real estate?

A letter of intent is the short, mostly-non-binding document that sets the major economic and legal terms of a commercial lease before lawyers draft the lease itself. In a commercial deal it's where you actually negotiate — base rent, term, free rent, TI allowance, renewal rights, expansion rights. Course 1 includes a full lesson on drafting and negotiating LOIs, plus a comparison with how LOIs work in commercial purchase transactions.

Does Louisiana law treat commercial leases differently from residential?

Yes — significantly. Louisiana is a civil-code state, and commercial leases in particular hit places where the Civil Code, LREC rules (including the LREC Rule 3703 agency-disclosure requirement), and recording statutes diverge from common-law states. Course 1 covers the eight specific places this matters in commercial practice.

Is there a refund policy?

A full refund is available within seven calendar days of enrollment, provided you've completed less than 20% of the course content. Refund requests go to info@fineran-ce.com with your name, LREC license number, and course title, and are processed back to your original payment method within five business days. Refunds aren't available once you've passed the final exam (your LREC credit has been applied), if you've completed more than 20% of the content, or after the seven-day window.

Can my brokerage buy seats for a team?

Yes. Group purchase pricing is available for five or more seats. Email info@fineran-ce.com with your headcount and we'll send you a quote.

Spend four hours learning the lease deals other agents avoid.

Or keep referring them out. Up to you.

Enroll · $79
Or bundle both courses for $129 · save $29