How to track commercial lease critical dates

Published 6 October 2026. Updated 6 October 2026.

Why lease dates get missed

A commercial lease is a long document, and the dates that cost money are scattered through it. The expiry is on page one. The renewal option sits in a clause near the middle. The rent escalation is in a schedule at the back, and an amendment signed two years later may have quietly changed all three.

A missed deadline usually comes down to one of three gaps: the date was never written down in one place, it was written down wrong, or nobody was told it was coming. This guide sets out a method that closes all three.

Step 1: Gather the whole document set

Before you read a single clause, collect everything that forms the lease:

• The base lease, with every exhibit and schedule.
• Every amendment, addendum and side letter.
• Any commencement date memorandum or similar letter, which records the actual start and end dates when the lease ties them to delivery of the premises.
• Any assignment or sublease consent that changes who holds the rights.

A date in the base lease is only a starting point. An amendment overrides the clause it changes, so the amended version is the one that counts. If you track dates from the base lease alone, you will sooner or later track a date that no longer applies.

Step 2: Know which dates to capture

Not every date needs an alert. These are the ones that tend to carry a cost or a lost right:

Your lease may have others. If a clause says "within thirty days of" or "no later than", it contains a date worth recording.

Step 3: Record the source of every date

For each date, write down four things:

1. The date itself.
2. The clause and page it comes from.
3. How it was worked out, for example "180 days before expiry".
4. Which document governs, the base lease or a named amendment.

The page reference is the part most trackers skip, and it is the most useful. When someone questions a date eighteen months later, you can open the page and read the words instead of trusting a number in a cell.

Step 4: Work out the deadlines correctly

A notice deadline is usually expressed as a period counted back from another date. Counting it correctly takes care: whether the period is in calendar days or business days, whether the first day counts, and what happens when the result lands on a weekend or holiday. Leases differ on all of these, so read the definition in your lease. Our separate guide on how to calculate lease notice deadlines goes through the common traps one by one.

Step 5: Put the dates where people will see them

A date in a spreadsheet nobody opens is a date nobody will meet. Put each one in a calendar that the responsible person already checks, and set more than one alert:

• A first alert far enough ahead to make a decision, such as whether to renew.
• A second alert in time to prepare and send the notice.
• A final alert close enough to the deadline to be unmissable.

Give every alert an owner. "The team" is not an owner.

Step 6: Keep the list current

Dates change. An amendment is signed, a tenant assigns the lease, a renewal is exercised and the whole timeline shifts. Set a standing habit of updating the record whenever a document is signed, and run a quick review of upcoming dates each month. Check the record against the lease again whenever something is amended.

A short checklist

• Every lease has its full document set in one folder.
• Every critical date has a page and clause reference.
• Every notice deadline shows the working behind it.
• Amendments are folded in and named as the governing source.
• Each date is in a calendar with at least three alerts.
• Each alert has a named owner.
• Someone updates the record when a document changes.

How LeaseDeadline does this step

LeaseDeadline does much of steps 2 to 5 for the documents you upload; gathering them and naming an owner for each date stay with you. You upload the lease and its amendments as PDF, Word or text files, scanned or digital, up to 6 files in all. The software drafts a lease abstract in which every field cites its page and clause. Code, not the AI model, computes the notice dates, and a second AI model reviews each result against the clause. Anything the lease leaves ambiguous comes back to you as a question rather than a guess.

You get the abstract as JSON, PDF and Word, and a calendar file in the .ics format for Outlook or Google Calendar that contains the checked dates only. Reminder emails are optional, set lease by lease at 2 credits a lease a month, and go out at least 180, 90 and 30 days before each deadline. Results are model output checked by code and by a second model, and the lease itself governs. An abstraction costs 25 credits a lease.

You can sign up and try it on one lease. If you want to see how an abstract is organised first, read our guide to what a lease abstract should contain.

Questions

How early should a lease deadline reminder go out?

Earlier than feels necessary. A single reminder on the deadline itself is too late to act on. A common pattern is one alert months ahead to decide, one in time to prepare the notice, and one final warning, each with a named person responsible.

Should the tenant's dates and the landlord's dates be tracked separately?

Yes. Mark every date with who must act. A date the tenant must act on still matters to a landlord, because the landlord needs to plan for a renewal or a vacancy, but the action and the owner differ.

Is a spreadsheet good enough to track lease dates?

For a handful of leases it can be. It starts to fail when dates are typed in by hand without a page reference, when amendments are not folded in, and when nobody is alerted. Those are the points to fix, whatever tool you use.