Missing a rent review date, lease expiry, or option exercise window can cost an organisation tens of thousands of dollars - and in competitive markets, it can mean losing a strategically important location entirely. This guide covers the 7 lease milestones every commercial tenant must track, what happens when each is missed, and the systems that prevent it.
Written by the LOIS team. Updated June 2026.
What happens if you miss it: Most commercial leases specify a notice window - often 30 to 60 days - within which the tenant must respond to or trigger a rent review. Miss that window and the landlord may lock in the current rent, or worse, apply a higher rate uncontested. There is usually no recourse once the window has closed.
Concrete example: A mid-sized commercial site at $50,000 per month, running 10% above market, locks in $60,000 in avoidable overpayments before the next review opportunity - simply because the 30-day response window was missed.
CPI-linked reviews carry a different risk. If the CPI adjustment is applied to the wrong base rent due to data entry errors or a missed prior review, compounding errors accumulate across the lease term and become difficult to unwind without a formal dispute.
What happens if you miss it: A lease that expires without a renewal being negotiated typically rolls over as a periodic tenancy - often month-to-month. This sounds manageable, but it hands significant leverage to the landlord, who can issue a relatively short notice to vacate at any time.
Concrete example: A retail organisation with a flagship store in a high-foot-traffic location loses track of the expiry date. By the time anyone acts, the landlord has already entered discussions with another tenant. The organisation faces the choice between accepting unfavourable renewal terms or losing the site entirely.
What happens if you miss it: Lease options to renew are subject to strict notice periods - often six to twelve months before expiry. Miss the window and the option lapses. The tenant loses their contractual right to renew and must renegotiate from scratch, if the landlord is willing at all.
Concrete example: An organisation holding a five-year option over a distribution centre fails to exercise within the required 12-month window. The landlord is not obligated to offer the same terms. Replacement premises take four months to secure at a 25% higher rent, plus fitout costs - and the total cost of the missed deadline runs to several hundred thousand dollars.
What happens if you miss it: Make-good clauses require the tenant to restore the premises to a specified condition before vacating. These obligations need to be planned well in advance - often six to nine months before exit - to source contractors, obtain approvals, and complete works without disrupting operations.
Concrete example: A property manager realises make-good works are required only four weeks before the lease end date. Emergency contractor rates and overtime premiums inflate the cost by 40% compared to a planned engagement. Landlords can also pursue tenants for a cash settlement when make-good is not completed to standard, adding legal costs on top of an already expensive exit.
What happens if you miss it: Landlords commonly offer fitout incentives - cash contributions toward tenant improvements - as part of lease negotiations. These incentives have claim deadlines, typically 12 to 24 months after the lease commencement date. Miss the deadline and the cash is forfeited, regardless of what was agreed at signing.
Concrete example: A $150,000 fitout incentive goes unclaimed because the property manager who negotiated the lease moved on, and their replacement was unaware of the claim deadline buried in the lease schedule. The write-off was material enough to require disclosure in the financial statements.
What happens if you miss it: Many commercial leases require the tenant to maintain a bank guarantee or security deposit in favour of the landlord. These guarantees carry annual review dates or trigger events that require the amount to be confirmed or updated. Failure to comply can give the landlord grounds to draw on the security or claim a default.
Concrete example: A guarantee with an annual review clause is not updated following a lease extension. The landlord's solicitors argue the original guarantee no longer meets the updated lease terms and threaten to draw down. Resolving the dispute requires legal advice and delays month-end processing by two weeks.
What happens if you miss it: Many commercial leases include contractual rights that are time-limited - the right to surrender early, request a rent reduction following a hardship event, or sublet part of the premises. These rights lapse if not exercised within the defined window, and there is rarely a mechanism to revive them.
Concrete example: A lease contains an early surrender right exercisable in the fourth year of a seven-year term, subject to 90-day written notice. The organisation's footprint strategy changes, but the team does not know the window has already passed. The result is three more years of rent on underutilised space that could have been exited at a fraction of the cost.
Spreadsheets and calendar reminders work well enough for a handful of leases. They break down quickly as portfolios grow. The core problems are structural: milestone data lives in a single person's file, so when they leave, the knowledge goes with them. There is no visibility across the portfolio at a glance, and no automatic connection between property events and the finance team's IFRS 16 calculations. A rent review that gets actioned by property but not communicated to finance creates a data mismatch that only surfaces at audit - by which point the journal entries are already wrong.
For a detailed look at how disconnected systems between property and finance teams create compounding risk, see our post on aligning finance and property lease data.
Use this table to assess how your current process handles each milestone type.
| Milestone | Typical notice required | Consequence of missing | Who owns it | Tracked in LOIS? |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Market rent review | 30-60 days | Locked into above-market rent for next review cycle | Property team | Yes - alert and reminder |
| CPI rent review | Varies by lease | Wrong base rent, compounding calculation errors | Finance / Property | Yes - alert and reminder |
| Lease expiry | 6-12 months for renegotiation | Rolls to periodic tenancy, loss of negotiating leverage | Property team | Yes - alert and reminder |
| Option exercise window | 6-12 months before expiry | Option lapses, renegotiation from scratch or site loss | Property team | Yes - alert and reminder |
| Make-good obligations | 6-9 months before exit | Emergency contractor rates, landlord claims for damages | Property team | Yes - dashboard alert |
| Fitout incentive expiry | 12-24 months from commencement | Forfeited cash entitlement | Property team | Yes - dashboard alert |
| Bank guarantee review | Annual or on trigger event | Landlord may draw on security or claim default | Finance / Property | Yes - dashboard alert |
| Critical notification periods | Varies - often 60-90 days | Contractual right lapses, trapped in lease or foregone exit | Property team | Yes - dashboard alert |
LOIS is built as a total tenant lease platform - not a workaround bolted onto an accounting tool. For property teams managing milestone risk, three features matter most.
Portfolio timelines and proactive alerts give your team a portfolio-wide view of upcoming events. Rather than relying on a personal calendar or a shared spreadsheet, all milestones are visible in a single timeline, with configurable lead times so alerts arrive with enough time to act.
Automatic reminders for rent reviews and expiries are set against each lease record and triggered automatically as deadlines approach. Reminders are not tied to any one person - they route to the right team regardless of staff changes, which is where most manual systems break down.
Workflows and approvals between property and finance teams ensure that when a milestone is actioned - a rent review agreed, an option exercised - the downstream financial implications flow through to the finance team in a structured way. No manual handoffs, no data gaps at month end.
For a full overview of how LOIS supports property teams, see the LOIS property management page. For related reading on the operational side of lease portfolio risk, see 9 signs your lease management process is becoming a liability and mastering property lease management.
What is the most commonly missed commercial lease milestone?
Rent review dates and option exercise windows are the two most frequently missed milestones in commercial property portfolios, both carrying strict notice requirements - typically 30 to 60 days for rent reviews and six to twelve months for options - where missing the window has direct, unrecoverable financial consequences. The cost ranges from months of above-market rent to the complete loss of a renewal right.
How much advance notice should property managers have before a rent review?
Property managers need at least 90 days' advance notice before a market rent review date and 60 days before a CPI-linked review - enough time for market research, landlord engagement, and external valuations if required. LOIS supports this by allowing reminders to be set at 90, 60, and 30 days before each review date, creating multiple checkpoints so no single missed alert becomes a missed deadline.
What happens if a commercial tenant misses a lease option exercise window?
When a tenant misses the contractually specified option exercise window, the option lapses entirely and the tenant must renegotiate from scratch - with no contractual right to the prior rent, term length, or conditions. In a tight property market, losing the option can also mean losing the premises altogether if the landlord has already engaged with another party.
What systems help property managers track lease milestones?
LOIS is a purpose-built lease management platform that stores all milestone data against each lease record, sends automated alerts at configurable lead times, and provides a portfolio-wide timeline view - replacing the calendar reminders and spreadsheets that fail as portfolios grow. Automatic reminders for rent reviews, lease expiries, and option windows are included, alongside structured workflows that connect property and finance teams when a milestone is actioned.
Do make-good obligations need to be tracked separately from the lease?
Make-good obligations should be recorded against the relevant lease record from the date the lease is executed - not surfaced for the first time four weeks before exit. Recording make-good terms at commencement, setting a planning alert 9 to 12 months before the lease end date, and building the associated cost into long-range financial planning are standard practices in well-managed commercial portfolios.
See how LOIS tracks every lease milestone
Automatic reminders, portfolio timelines, and structured workflows - built for property teams managing real portfolio complexity.
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