Negotiating cell phone tower leases is difficult when both you and your attorney don’t speak in telecommunications legal terms. How can you be sure that the cell tower lease rate you are negotiating is fair market value? Although your attorney may have helped you close real estate deals, handled litigation or other complex transactions in the past, and may even be a good friend, it is likely that in 99% of all cell phone tower deals, you don’t know. worry too much. cell phone tower leasing, or how to deal with carriers.

Imagine the following mobile phone tower leasing scenario. Imagine that cell phone companies and their lawyers are a pride of hungry lions. The owners and their attorney are a young animal separated from the pack. Without proper protection, you have no chance. Wireless service providers and their attorneys will dictate their terms to you, especially if you or your attorney do not speak telecommunications legal jargon. By the time you realize what is happening, it is too late; Either you agreed to terms in your cell tower lease that you are not satisfied with, your attorney removed you from the deal, or they moved to another site. Either way, you are dead.

Here’s the scoop on cell tower lease rates that cell phone operators don’t want homeowners to know about. Wireless operators pay their real estate site acquisition leasing contractors high commissions to execute cell tower leases at certain prices. The better the terms agreed in favor of the carrier, the greater the bonus that will be paid to the leasing agent. Now, there is nothing wrong with this as we live in a free market society, but if you own a property and a hauler wants to lease you space for a tower or rooftop cell site, you need to make sure that is maximizing Your income.

Misconceptions about cell site leasing:

Often times, homeowners and landlords look to a cell site expert to provide comparative lease rates paid by nearby cell phone operators to determine what they should be getting as fair market value.

Similarly, cell phone operators regularly push back during lease negotiations saying that no landlord is getting what you ask for.

Here’s 411. Neighboring landlords with existing cell phone tower leases could have negotiated horrible rates and terms, and cell phone operators can literally scam and cheat landlords into placing cell phone towers wherever they can find a landlord willing to take a cheap rental rate land and does not reflect fair market value.

All the research and fair market value data on lease rates is completely worthless if you don’t know how the cell phone tower lease bargaining game is played.

Think about this …

At a lease rate of $ 2K per month or $ 24K annual rent, if you accept annual rent increases of 2% instead of annual increases of 3%, you will receive $ 132,000 LESS during the 25-year term of the tower lease. cell phone. Now let’s say you have a 4- or 5-carrier monopole cell tower and all of your leases are at 2% instead of 3%. Now we are talking about more than half a million dollars in lost income during the terms of the leases. Ow !!

Now here’s the little detail that will make you laugh or cry over cell phone antenna lease fees. The cell site acquisition subcontractor we talked to you about a few paragraphs ago could make a $ 500 to $ 2,500 bonus for saving the carrier the $ 132,000 they would pay you if you had accepted the better terms.

Are you negotiating cell phone tower lease rates on an equal footing with cell phone operators?