Our experienced licensing agreement lawyers can help guide you to the best outcome so you can move forward with your commercial project with confidence.
Licence agreements
A licence agreement can be used by landlords to let a person use their property for a specific purpose and time period. While it is similar to a lease, licensing agreements are different to commercial leases in two specific ways:
- Exclusivity: While they have the right to use the property, a licence agreement cannot give someone exclusive possession of a property. This makes licensing agreements useful if you’re giving someone the right to use part of an open space, like a building foyer.
- Proprietary rights: A licensing agreement gives someone the right to use a property or space, but it doesn’t give them other rights over the property. This is different from a lease where the tenant can do more with the property, like assign their lease to someone else.
What to include in your licensing agreement
There are a few things that you need to include in your licensing agreement, including:
- A description of the area that is to be licensed. This can be tricky, especially if the area is a space rather than a specific walled property. But if your licensing agreement describes the licensed area well, you may have flexibility to change it, with agreement from the other party, over time if you need to;
- How long the licence will go for. Unlike leases, which are often very long, a licence can be granted for a very short period of time; and
- How much you will pay for the licence.
Why MNG Lawyers
Frequently Asked Questions
A licensing agreement is different from a lease and should only be used when you’re giving someone the right to use a property or space for specific reasons and a specific period of time. For example, if you’re giving someone the right to use the foyer of your commercial building for a pop up shop, you will need to use a licence agreement. That’s because you can’t grant them exclusive rights over the space as others need it.
Other common examples of where licensing agreements are commonly used include:
- Co-working spaces, where several businesses have a right to use a space;
- Shared offices, like medical clinics where you may have a room in a building to conduct your business;
- Franchising arrangements, where the franchisor holds the lease and the franchisee licenses the space; and
- Before a lease starts, so the tenant can go into the property and start setting it up.