Comment on Force is the last refuge of the incompetent
WoodScientist@sh.itjust.works 1 day ago
We need to start taxing companies more that put undue burden on the infrastructure and environment. Do you require your employees to come in to an office for work that could be done from home? You should have to pay a double employer payroll tax for every employee you do this to. We need to start taxing the vanity of CEOs.
W3dd1e@lemmy.zip 21 hours ago
Their mortgages have clauses that cost them when tenants are not operating onsite. It devalues restaurants and stores in the area. I’m not saying it’s right. It’s just how it works. Tenants have to do business on site during the lease if they pay fees and their landlords have to pay the banks.
Source: I work in commercial real estate.
Sonor@lemmy.world 10 hours ago
How do they define “operating”? Percentage wise?
W3dd1e@lemmy.zip 6 hours ago
I’ll try to look some up today but I think it varies by lease and by loan. You can’t apply the same rules to a warehouse as an office as a grocery store. Also, big spaces are different than small restaurants. Might not be consequences for a Chipotle but there could be for a grocery store in the same strip mall. The leases negotiated between the landlord and the tenant also have to be approved by the lender.
The whole thing is called “going dark”, meaning they are still paying rent but not operating on the premises. It causes the borrower/landlord to go into something called “cash management”. They lose the ability to collect rents directly. It all gets sent to a special lockbox that the lender has access to. They use those funds to post the payment and other things like that. They send a portion back to the borrow for operating expenses then hold onto the rest. The borrower also has to pay cash management and bank account fees when this happens.
I remember there was a big fight at a shopping center near me because a grocery store wanted to move the grocery location and open a giant liquor store in its place but the landlord didn’t like that. I believe they ended up terminating the lease and a different grocery store moved in. My company didn’t handle that loan so I don’t know the details but I knew that the loan was likely the real reason for the fight.
W3dd1e@lemmy.zip 6 hours ago
Oh also, the zoning and type of property matters too. A strip mall has different requirements than an office or hotel. Obviously