Tenant Resources

Here at Kenwood Management, we strive to build a strong community for all of our tenants. When you lease from us, we go beyond just providing the space. Our goal is to expand the typical tenant-landlord relationship. We endeavor to enhance our tenant’s businesses as well as the neighborhoods and communities around our properties.

One way we accomplish this goal is to provide resources that benefit our tenants exclusively. Every month, we create tenant-focused articles that aim to be timely, relevant, and insightful. This is just one of the ways we look to benefit the Kenwood Community, so that you may have the resources to make informed decisions about your business.

Our team has put together a list of some of our favorite articles that we’ve posted in the last few months:

What’s The Purpose of a Tenant Estoppel?

When Kenwood Management is involved with a property sale or refinance, we are required to provide an estoppel certificate for each tenant to execute. This is a routine and common practice in commercial real estate transactions and financings. Whether you have seen an estoppel certificate before or not, you will eventually be asked to sign on by your landlord. Thus, it’s good to know what it is and why it’s important.

An estoppel is a document that summarizes the contractual terms of your relationship with your Landlord. It establishes a relationship between a Landlord and a Tenant. It’s a means for the lender to confirm the Landlord’s data about the lease. 

It’s important to understand that an estoppel isn’t intended to be a lease amendment to modify information such as lease terms or rental rates. Instead, its purpose is to confirm already existing information, terms, and conditions. It includes information such as lease dates, rental rates, security deposits, and so on.

If you receive an estoppel, there are a number of things you should do. First, compare the information in the estoppel to your lease terms to make sure that all the information is accurate. Also, notarize your estoppel (most require this) and check the time frame you have to review and execute the agreement. Lastly, it’s worth noting that most Tenants don’t need to spend money to engage an attorney to review an estoppel since it just summarizes terms already agreed upon.

Tenant estoppel certificates do not have to be intimidating, but there is a lot to know about them. If you want to go more in depth on estoppel certificates, read the full article.

Go-Giver Culture

Can you name a book that you enjoy reading multiple times? Here at Kenwood, that book for us is Go-Giver by Bob Burg. Want to know why?

The book, subtitled “A Little Story about a Powerful Business Idea,” disrupts the belief that the go-getters are the ones who will achieve success. Instead, it centers the idea that, in order to achieve success, leaders must give — and it summarizes some of the core principles that we follow.

To illustrate what it means to be a go-giver, the book outlines the following five Laws of Stratospheric Success: The Law of Value, The Law of Compensation, The Law of Influence, The Law of Authenticity, and The Law of Receptivity. The key to success isn’t about focusing on yourself, but rather how you give to others.

Putting these laws into action can be intimidating, but we believe they are necessary to lead a successful and fulfilling life. If you want to take a deeper dive into the Laws of Stratospheric Success and how to implement them into your business, read our full article.

2020 Employment Laws

At the end of 2020, Kenwood hosted a webinar on the 2020 Employment Law Updates that business owners need to know. The webinar was led by Meredith S. Campbell, Esq. of Shulman Rogers as an exclusive benefit to business leaders in the Kenwood Community.

While employment laws are incredibly important to understand, they seem to be getting more and more complicated. Even simple violations can land businesses in serious hot water. That’s why we offered a webinar that provided insight and knowledge on how workplaces can operate smoothly in a post-COVID landscape.

The webinar covered changes to the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), which updated the minimum salary threshold, and now requires employers to pay overtime. Meredith discussed the circumstances that make a worker either an employee or an independent contractor by citing new guidance as proposed by the Department of Labor. She also covered Executive Order 13950, also known as “Combatting Race and Sex Stereotyping,” that was issued back in September. Lastly, Meredith presented several local employment law updates in various states, such as Maryland, Virginia, and D.C.

To learn more about the key changes to employment laws for 2021, read the full article.

Thriving Through Adversity

In a three-part series, we took a dive into the ways we can use this adverse time in the wake of a pandemic to reflect, strategize, and innovate instead of just survive.

In the first part of our Thriving Through Adversity Series, we addressed ways in which you can use this time to build and strengthen your business for a strong comeback post-pandemic. For example, you can focus on strengthening the value of your relationships with your customers in both the B2B and B2C spaces. A true customer-first community requires that you focus on your audience first and the dollars last. You can also separate your marketing and customer communications. Create content that’s focused on deepening the relationship you have with your customers. Read Part I of Thriving Through Adversity for five more ways to strengthen your business.

Part II focused on six actionable steps you can take in a remote environment to help identify, create and foster your company culture and strengthen your internal marketing. Adversity can reveal the true color of a company’s culture so it’s important to pay attention to your company’s internal marketing to help shape your culture. Some actionable steps include performing a culture audit, assessing areas of improvement, and communicating results. Read Part II of Thriving Through Adversity to learn more about the steps you can foster company culture during the era of remote working.

And lastly, Part III addressed the importance of assessing yourself and your business environment. The key is brutal honesty, which will truly help you identify what is and isn’t working for your company, where you should apply your focus, and where the company is overwhelmed. In the process of reenvisioning your company, remember that it is okay to break the rules. You must think outside of your current box if you want to grow exponentially. There are no rules. Read Part III of Thriving Through Adversity find out how you can assess your company in the presence of adversity.

The Kenwood Community

At Kenwood, we go out of our way to make a community amongst our Tenants and the neighborhoods surrounding our properties. We want to make a difference and see the benefits of our efforts in the growth and longevity of our Tenant’s businesses and witness improvements to our local communities. To us, the Kenwood Community means to go beyond just providing space. Our entire team works diligently to communicate regularly, get to know each tenant personally, be available to answer questions, and so much more. If you want to learn more about what it means to be a part of the Kenwood Community, read the full article.

We work to provide relevant, timely information on our blog to help your business thrive as a part of the Kenwood Community. We have all these articles and more available on our blog. Our team of experts posts new articles every month. Subscribe to our blog to regularly get our content in your inbox.