BIGGEST RISK with Josh Bauchner

J Darrin Gross

I'd like to ask you. Josh Bauchner, what is the BIGGEST RISK?

Josh Bauchner

Well, the biggest risk here is getting sued by one of these serial plaintiffs, with one of these attorneys who's just in it for for the fees. To answer your question, I think ADA compliance planning, bringing in one of these testers, like we discussed, to assess the premises and make any determinations as to what's not compliant, then do an assessment as to what the cost would be to potentially bring it into compliance. Is it something that you could readily do, putting up the handlebars in the bathroom stall, for example, perhaps changing the front entrance door to provide handicap accessibility, or is it cost prohibitive? If the bathroom is downstairs and you can install an elevator, there's really no way around that to gain access. And then the challenge becomes with respect to shifting that burden, the landlords are doing that right. So in most lease agreements, most commercial lease agreements, the landlords are including an indemnification obligation where they're shifting the burden onto the tenant to both ensure compliance, remediate the premises in the absence of compliance, and if sued, pay for the landlord's fees and costs. It challenges again, the tenant doesn't necessarily recognize that obligation in Louise when they're signing on, and they certainly don't recognize what the costs that they're at risk of incurring are going to be if they are sued. And so unless they're a really big business, you know, $100,000 hit to your bottom line could put you out of business, and then again, it becomes the domino effect. Great. So now they are out of business. They've shut down. They've got six more years on their lease term. They vacated the premises. Now the landlord suing the tenant because they've reached the lease the landlord has to find the new tenant to mitigate it just creates a whole host of unintended consequences, all because, again, these serial filers think they're doing right,

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