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A swan and its reflection on still water

Credence · What we do · For landlords

Credence TenantMatch · The Still Water

The right tenant, the right terms, no drama at exit.

For owners, landlords and developers across Mumbai and MMR, Bhiwandi and Ahmedabad. We define who your ideal tenant is before we go looking, screen every prospect against it, and negotiate the clauses that protect the asset rather than only the rent.

ScreenedEvery prospect, before you meet them
ProtectedUsage, fit-out, compliance and exit, in writing
PeacefulPossession back in the condition you gave it
Book a free strategy session See how we screen
A swan on open water, head raised
The Still Water Peaceful possession is not luck. It is what the screening bought you.

The thing owners get wrong

The wrong tenant costs more than the empty months.

Almost every landlord optimises for two things: fill it fast, and get the highest rent. Both are reasonable. Together they are how assets get damaged.

Run the arithmetic on a five-year lease. Two extra months of vacancy while you wait for the right tenant costs you two months of rent. A tenant who pays 45 days late every month, uses the space for something the agreement never contemplated, installs a fit-out nobody approved and then disputes reinstatement at exit costs you far more than that — in recovery, in legal time, in the condition of the asset, and in the months it sits empty afterwards while you put it right.

The expensive mistake is almost never the vacancy. It is the tenant you took to end the vacancy.

So we do the unglamorous part first — decide precisely who this asset should be let to, and why — and only then go looking. It is slower at the start and considerably faster over the term.

Screening

What we check before a prospect ever reaches you.

A broker brings you someone willing to pay. An advisor brings you someone who will still be paying in year four, and who will hand the space back the way they found it. These are the checks that separate the two.

The entity

Who is actually on the hook

  1. Which legal entity signs — the parent with the balance sheet, or a subsidiary with none?
  2. How old is that entity, and what do the last two years of financials show?
  3. If it is funded rather than profitable, does the runway outlast the lock-in?
  4. Is there a personal or corporate guarantee, and is it worth anything?
  5. Any winding-up petitions, disputes or GST irregularities on record?
  6. Who signs, and can they actually bind the company?

The behaviour

The best predictor there is

  1. Where are they now, and why exactly are they leaving?
  2. Will they let us speak to their current landlord? A refusal is itself an answer.
  3. Did they pay on the due date, or on the due date plus forty-five?
  4. How did the last exit go — deposit returned in full, or argued over?
  5. Have they altered a space without approval before?
  6. How many times have they moved in ten years, and why?

The fit

Whether the asset survives them

  1. Does their intended use match what the building is permitted for?
  2. What compliance load do they bring — pollution, fire, effluent, licences?
  3. How heavy is their fit-out? Heavy investment makes a sticky tenant.
  4. What does their business do to the neighbours, and to your other tenants?
  5. Power, water and effluent demand against what the building can actually supply.
  6. Will they still fit this space if they grow 40%, or will you be re-letting in year two?

Where the pipeline comes from

Roughly a third of the businesses we place come through referral networks we have been part of for years — BNI, the family-business community, chartered accountants who know their clients’ books before we do. A tenant who arrives with a reference behind them is a fundamentally different risk from one who answered a listing. The rest come from the open market, and those get screened harder.

The agreement

Eleven clauses that decide what your asset is worth in year five.

Rent is the number everyone negotiates. These are the ones that quietly determine whether you get the asset back in lettable condition — and they are where we spend our time.

Permitted use, drawn tightly

Exactly what may happen in the space — and what may not. Loose drafting here is how a warehouse becomes a workshop and your fire NOC becomes invalid.

Sub-letting and group companies

Can they bring in a sister concern? Assign on a sale of their business? If the clause is silent, the answer tends to be decided later, by someone else.

Fit-out approval

What they may install, whose approval is needed, and which alterations are structural. Approve the drawings, not the intention.

Reinstatement at exit

The single most disputed clause in commercial leasing. Define the handback condition in writing at signing, with photographs, or argue about it for months at the end.

Lock-in symmetry

If they are locked in for three years, what is your remedy when they leave in month fourteen? A lock-in without a liquidated consequence is a sentiment, not a term.

Escalation basis and frequency

The percentage matters less than what it compounds on and how often. Rent alone or rent plus CAM changes the five-year total materially.

Deposit — quantum and adjustment

How many months, held how, and expressly adjustable against dues and damage. A deposit you cannot draw against is not security.

Payment discipline

Due date, interest on delay, and the number of defaults that triggers termination. Written in at signing, it rarely has to be used.

Compliance and statutory dues

Whose licences, whose renewals, and who absorbs increases in property tax and municipal levies over the term.

Insurance

Who insures the structure, who insures the contents and the fit-out, and whose policy responds when the sprinkler fails at 2 a.m.

Exit protocol

Notice period, joint inspection, snag list, meter transfers and the sequence for releasing the deposit. Vague here means slow and contested there.

To be clear about what we are not

We do not draft these documents. We are not a law firm and will not pretend to be one. What we do is decode what the draft actually says, flag the clauses that cost you money later, and keep your lawyer, the tenant and the paperwork moving so nothing stalls on someone’s desk.

The process

Six steps, from empty to possession.

  1. Asset and owner briefWhat the building can support, what you need from it, and what you are and are not willing to accept in a tenant. Your risk appetite is a specification, so we write it down.
  2. Ideal tenant profileSector, size, entity strength, fit-out intensity, compliance load and lease length — agreed with you before anyone is approached, so “no” is a decision we made together rather than an argument later.
  3. SourcingReferral network first, open market second. Every prospect measured against the profile, not against how quickly they said yes.
  4. Screening and shortlistThe checks above, run before an introduction. You meet people who have already survived the filter.
  5. Negotiation and documentationTerms that protect asset value, not only the headline rent. Documentation oversight with the clauses above read line by line.
  6. Handover and possession protocolJoint inspection, photographed condition record, meters, and a snag list both sides sign. This is the document that makes exit uneventful in year five.

Commercials

We are paid when the space is let, not before.

Success-based brokerage, agreed in writing at the start.

No retainer, no marketing fee, no charge for the time we spend on the profile and the screening. If we do not place a tenant you accept, we are not paid.

There are two things we ask in return, and they are the reason this works: that you accept the qualifying process — including our recommendation to decline a prospect who can pay — and that you hold to the documentation standard, even when a tenant pushes back on a clause late in the day.

Those two conditions are what make peaceful possession likely rather than lucky. A landlord who overrides both is welcome to, but should engage someone else to do it.

Fair questions

What owners ask us first.

I already have three brokers on it. Why add another?

Three brokers with the same listing produce the same tenant three times and a race to the bottom on terms. What none of them produces is a tenant profile, a screening standard, or a person reading the agreement on your side. Those are different jobs, and only one of them is worth paying for.

I can’t afford to leave it empty another month.

That is the pressure the wrong tenant is placed under. Two months of vacancy is a known, bounded cost. A tenant who pays late, alters the space and contests reinstatement is an unbounded one. If the vacancy genuinely cannot be carried, say so on the call and we will change the profile deliberately rather than by accident.

Someone is offering 15% above my asking rent.

Then the first question is why. An above-market offer usually buys something — a use the building isn’t permitted for, a short runway that needs a quick address, or a covenant nobody has checked. Sometimes it is simply a good tenant in a hurry. We find out which before you sign, not after.

Why do you need to speak to my prospect’s current landlord?

Because it is the single most predictive check available and it costs one phone call. Financials tell you whether they can pay. Their last landlord tells you whether they did.

Do you manage the property afterwards?

No. We place the tenant, protect the terms and run the handover. Ongoing facilities and property management is a different business and we will introduce you to people who do it properly rather than do it badly ourselves.

My tenant’s lease expires next year. Is that too early to talk?

It is close to too late. We start renewal conversations nine to twelve months out, because that is when you still have options — renegotiate, replace, or reposition. At three months out you have one option and the tenant knows it.

An eagle soaring against an open sky

The strategy session

Forty-five minutes. No pitch.

Bring the asset and we will build the tenant profile with you on the call — sector, entity strength, fit-out intensity, lease length, and the clauses your current draft is missing. You keep it whether or not you appoint us.

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Worth bringing to the call

  • What the building is permitted for, and its OC and fire NOC status.
  • Your current draft agreement, if you have one we can read.
  • Sanctioned power, water and any effluent capacity.
  • What went wrong with the last tenant — that shapes the profile more than anything else.
  • When the space is genuinely available, and what you can carry until then.

Not what you were after?

The other two mandates.

For operators · The Ground

Commercial Fit

You need space that fits how the business actually works — and will still fit it in five years.

Commercial Fit

For investors & family offices · The Depth

Pre-Leased Edge

Yield without operating risk — tenant, title and lease diligenced before the price is discussed.

Pre-Leased Edge