Crown Castle paid $5,000 for having the option of extending its lease options from 25 years to 40 years. In addition, the contract language also said that the landlord continues to have Crown Castle negotiate on his behalf. That was in 2009.
In 2012, Crown Castle exercised its right of first refusal when I decided to sell my leases to a third party, Wireless Captial Partners. Crown, however, changed the contract language which made it far more advantageous for them than what the Wireless Captial(WCP) contract was.
Under the WCP contract, there was no proration of rent and that any new tenant that comes on board I would get full rent for. The buyout was just for the existing leases. If for whatever reason, one of the cell companines dropped off, then I would be entitled to any new revenue if a carrier replaced that spot on the tower and paid more than the original lease. All very fair.
Crown Castle changed it so they could prorate the contract amounting to $30,000 and through in a lot ambiguous language stating that I would be entitled to any rents MINUS any administrative and other related costs. Please, any adminsitrative or other costs are baked into the tower's lease, not the carriers lease.
Needless to say, the deal didn't go through. Immediately after, Crown Atlantic tells T-Mobile, one of the carriers, that the rent increase that I was being paid since 2009 for antanaee upgrades should have been paid to Crown Atlantic. So T-Mobile stopped my checks until they recovered $11,000 and then dropped my monthly payments down $150. Of course, it took months of calling T-Mobile to get them to say why they stopped payments. The first 2 calls were answered with that they sent the checks out, the third was answered that there was a problem but they didn't know what. Finally, they said that even though my rent was split evenly with Crown, they couldn't say why I wouldn't get any split from any upgrades. They said there contract is with Crown Atlantic and therefore couldn't divulge what it said.
When contacting Crown Atlantic, of course, I got the same run-a-round and then finally recieved an email stating that the contract with T-Mobile in 2009, which Crown negotiated on MY behalf, stated that all increase in revenue went solely to Crown Atlintic. When I wrote back asking if he thought that violated the spirit of negotiating on my behalf I never heard a response.
I've heard a lot of stories regarding cell tower buyouts and leases involving many different companies,,,, WCP, Crown, Landmark, the carriers, etc.... And it is true, you have to watch everything, especially the companies wanting to buyout the leases. They arena they play in is definitely a shark tank no matter how nice they are. The bootom line is they are only interested in the bottom line for them and, to be fair, that is what their business is about... buying something and then repackaging it and selling it for more. I get that.
Crown Castle, on the otherhand, is a bit more than that and we will be filing a lawsuit against them and T-Mobile. If you are a landlord, and you have Crown Castle negotiating on your behalf and you haven't seen any rent increases with all the recent upgrades going on the last 5 years, then you need to contact me and your lawyer. I am sure that I am not the only one that Crown is dicking around with.
Best wishes.