If you have determined that you want your business will be sharing an office rental space with another similar business, you will want to discuss things like dividing costs and responsibilities, and who will be making big decisions for the space. Another topic to discuss is the use of common areas in a shared space. Here is some more information about this aspect of space sharing, as seen in the article, “What’s Involved in Sharing Office Space“:
Use of Common Areas.
Most shared workspaces have some space that is used by all tenants, even if it is just the entryway at the front of a warehouse. It could also be much more than that, such as a reception area, storage space, office equipment, restrooms, conference rooms, and possibly even a kitchen area. Regardless of whether you have a lot of common space or just a little, you will need to have a clear agreement about how each business will use the space and how much each will pay for this use. There are a few different ways of determining how to split these costs.
- Equally sharing the cost of the common space, regardless of how much overall space each sharer uses.
- Pro-rating the common space cost based on how much overall space each tenant uses.
- Pro-rating the common space costs based on how much common space each tenant uses.
- Setting limits on the use of common area space so that tenants who want to use it must split or pro-rate the cost between users.
You will also want to discuss smaller issues, such as keeping the space clean, calendar use of conference rooms, and appearance of the space in general.
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