Before working in corporate real estate, I started my career in law enforcement. As a police officer, your work depends on critical thinking, investigation, and evidence. You gather facts carefully. You understand the law and read and interpret it. You compile complex information into clear, defensible documentation that allows others to depend on and act on your work. When disputes arise, you use communication, situational awareness, and conflict-resolution skills to defuse the situation and guide conversations toward practical resolution.
Years later, when I transitioned into commercial and corporate real estate, I realized something surprising. Many of the same skills applied.
Lease administration, at its core, is investigative work.
Anyone who has spent time in lease administration knows this feeling.
Every lease must be interpreted and abstracted. Each lease is uniquely different. Rent statements, escalations, and reconciliations require evaluation against the specific lease language. Conflicting information must be reconciled. Documentation must be clear and defensible. And when disputes arise, success often depends on facts, communication, and sound reasoning.
But the work is not only investigative. In many ways, it is also an enforcement role.
Lease administration helps ensure that parties operate within the terms of the contract. Charges are reviewed against what the lease specifically allows or disallows. Escalations are verified. When discrepancies appear, the responsibility is to raise the question, go back to the documentation, and adhere to the terms of the agreement.
Sometimes that simply means “This doesn’t look right. Let’s go back to the lease.”
Proactivity in lease administration follows the same theory as crime prevention. When this work is done well, the result is often measured by what did not happen. It is the issue that never escalates, the internal audit finding that neverappears, and the cost that never reaches the balance sheet or P&L.
This connection is what inspired the concept of Lease Police.
The term is meant somewhat playfully, but the idea behind it is serious. Lease administration plays a critical role in protecting organizations from financial and compliance risk. It requires attention to detail, strong documentation, and the confidence to challenge numbers or interpretations that do not align with the lease. It also requires communication and conflict-resolution skills that help navigate landlord discussions, resolve disputes, and support lease negotiations.
If you work in lease administration, you know exactly what this feels like.
You also know that companies and portfolios of all sizes face many of the same challenges, just on a different scale. Incomplete data. Dependencies. Late documentation. Where is the document repository? What is the source of truth? Complex lease language that can be interpreted three different ways depending on who is reading it. System limitations. Systems that do not communicate with each other. Tight deadlines. And the ongoing balance between operational realities and accounting and NIBT compliance.
If you have ever spent an afternoon tracing an issue back through a lease, amendments, email communications, spreadsheets, or invoices just to find the “smoking gun,” you are the Lease Police.
This blog is dedicated to sharing ideas, best practices, and the real situations that lease administrators deal with every day. The goal is to create a place where we can compare notes, share experiences, ask questions, and exchange perspectives. You are encouraged to contribute your insights because some of the best solutions will come from this community.
Regular blog posts will explore common challenges across the lease lifecycle, including reviewing operating expenses and reconciliations, identifying overcharges, improving lease data quality, addressing international and currency challenges, navigating lease accounting requirements, and strengthening internal controls and interdepartmental collaboration.
They will also include training resources and insights about what is happening in the industry, from evolving accounting standards and reporting expectations to emerging technologies. This includes exploring how tools such as AI and intelligent data assistants may help lease professionals analyze information, surface issues more quickly, and support stronger oversight of lease portfolios.
Lease administration often happens behind the scenes, but when it is done well it protects organizations from risk, supports better operational decisions, and helps control occupancy costs.
Welcome to the Lease Police blog.
Comments
One response to “Lease Police: Investigation, Enforcement, and Protecting the Portfolio”
Spot on, why I’ve been referred to as ‘the fixer’. As a lease administer, you must never assume that if the landlord billed something that makes it correct. Landlords bill incorrectly all the time, like you mentioned with escalations, possibly escalating on the wrong date, or cpi, not using the correct months in the comparison of year over year indexation calculations. Great idea for a blog. As you know, I have been interviewing for open lease administration roles and it seems there are definitely common themes the companies are struggling with and what they are looking for in their candidates. This could be an additional resource or community of resources for lease administrators across all sectors. Thank you!