It seems not long ago the work day began at 9:00 AM and ended at 5:00 PM. Gradually this shifted to 8:00 AM to 6:00 PM. For better or for worse, today’s workplace often requires dramatically different and greatly extended working hours. Some of this has been caused by a company’s need to be more productive or efficient; to do more with less people. Some of it is a result of the increasingly “flat” or “global” economy, requiring people “here” to be in the office when people “over there” are in their office. Whatever the cause, it is ever more common to drive past an office building at 7:00 PM or 11:00 PM or 5:00 AM and see the lights on and the employees at their desks. When you then add to this phenomenon the combination of deregulated utility markets and higher core energy costs, the result, for many tenants, is an increasingly unpleasant surprise in the form of a big bill from their landlord for after-hours HVAC service
The following are some of the key considerations tenants and their advisors must proactively address in order reduce their future after-hours HVAC-related obligations and to recoup past overcharges.
| Consideration #1: |
Focus on “actual, incremental, out-of-pocket costs” |
| Consideration #2: |
Focus on prorating cost among simultaneous users |
| Consideration #3: |
Focus on accelerated depreciation |
| Consideration #4: |
Focus on locating groups requiring after-hours service in the same HVAC “zone”. |
| Consideration #5: |
Focus on alternatives to Landlord-provided HVAC Service |
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