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Montessori Teachers Chatboard

Own or Lease?

by Julie

Aug 12, 2012

Directors of private schools- Do you own or lease your building? We currently lease and as our lease comes to an end, we've been advised to start looking for a building to own.

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maureen On 8/12/12, Julie wrote: > Directors of private schools- Do you own or lease your > building? We currently lease and as our lease comes to an > end, we've been advised to start looking for a building to > own. I think it depends on a lot of things - relationship with the owners, how long of lease, is the lease good if ownership ends, ex...See MoreOn 8/12/12, Julie wrote: > Directors of private schools- Do you own or lease your > building? We currently lease and as our lease comes to an > end, we've been advised to start looking for a building to > own. I think it depends on a lot of things - relationship with the owners, how long of lease, is the lease good if ownership ends, expansion plans, those kinds of things.

If the school is wanting to exist beyond the years of the owner of the school, I would guess that ownership would be ideal if the right location, affordability, etc became available. Ownership should have involved years of following a business plan,buidling a nest egg, establishing some kind of foundation to fund the purchase - those kinds of things. They took care of snow removal, any electrical, furnace, ac problems. Cosmetic work was on our dime.

We leased long term and although the landlords were good about most things and they allowed us(and in the beginning they paid) to do a ton of adaptions to make it into a school (playground, back door, pave front lot for parking). However, we had some major issues that they never resolved in all those years. They only would do bandaid treatment and the problem would return. We found out towards the end of the lease that the owners had had a falling out with each other and were trying to sell a lot of their properties. We knew that there was always a chance that we could then be asked to leave by a new owner. When our lease was near the end, we asked to get out early according to our schedule and they did with no penalities. We relocated to another location that we owned.

A friend of mine bought her property and just had a one classroom building but she added a small toddler program. This worked well for them except once the recession hit, her enrollment dropped enough to cause her to worry. She says she has 4-5 more years on paying off the mortgage and then she will decide about selling the school. She will be ready to retire by then also. Other friends have leased spaces in churches mainly.

My feeling is that if a school has a plan for expansion it makes sense to make a permanent location decision. For the Mom and Pop type one classroom schools, it makes more sense to go the leasing route unless one doesn't have a firm, supportive landlord.

Aug 12, 2012

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