I currently rent and it is against my lease to run any business out of my place. My business will be a hybrid of e commerce and local markets and festivals.
I need a place to create, package, ship, and store my supplies. This is my second business that I am starting and I have very little money to rent a space, and very limited knowledge on that.
My main questions are: Are there any ways to get around violating my lease without renting a new space?
If I do end up having to rent a space, what should I keep in mind?
Can I use a P.o. box or something similar as my business address? It’s e commerce so would that technically be running a business inside the property?
Any help is welcome
free men dont ask permission
I don’t see how that could possibly be enforced if there aren’t people coming and going from your place. You could set up a business address (not a PO Box) through a company that does that (very common for this situation or people who want an official address in a fancy part of town), but I don’t think your landlord has much power here as long as the apartment is also your primary residence. You’re allowed to work from home, and if your business address is somewhere else and you don’t have customers coming and going, you’re not really even “ruining the business” from your apartment. If management comes for you, they’re going to have to come for all the freelancers too.
As another poster said, it’s highly at the discretion of the apartment complex. I run a single-member LLC service-based business and all of my supplies/tools fit at my desk or in my car - you wouldn’t even know I ran a business here unless I told you. But I still had to get a special letter from the leasing office in order to get my occupational tax certificate from the city. Be honest with your leasing office, because if you try to sneak around them they can terminate your lease if they find out.
I might be off on this but I would think that the apartment complex is most worried about increased traffic into the community from people who don’t live there. They might also care about logistics - receiving large quantities of packages. But idk.
For my occupational tax certificate, my city wouldn’t allow a PO box as a business address. Might vary in your jurisdiction, but I think most don’t allow that.
If all goes well and you get approved through your apartment, does your complex have garages? Most in my area have single-car garages for rent at like $100/month or something. Not a ton of room but probably enough to at least get you started.
You might want to consider how many incoming packages there will be. You might want to get PO box just so they aren’t left on your doorstep or the management office waiting for pick up.
This, 100%.get a PO box or UPS store box (which are nice bc you get a normal street address). You don’t want deliveries all day everyday at your apt.
Not a lawyer,
Most of the time those clauses are designed to not allow you to run a retail operation with people coming and going. An online business is probably fine in that, it would still theoretically be a violation of the lease but mostly would not be enforced. This is of course at the landlords discretion.
It would be difficult to detect unless you regularly had pallets of inventory coming and going all the time.
Why not rent a storage spot to organize your stuff? If all you are doing is storing supplies an inventory and boxing your stuff for mailing, you can do that easily in an inside or outside storage locker. I’m sure they might have some rules too, just be low key about it. Not like you are baking food or selling to customers on site. You can buy a P.O. Box for mail or pay for a monthly hot desk that offers mailboxes.