Related guides: What happens to your personal guarantee when you close | How to negotiate a lease buyout | How to walk away from a restaurant lease
If you're behind on rent, facing a default notice, or worried your landlord is about to act -- the most important thing you can do right now is organize your documents and facts before you talk to a lawyer. Lawyers bill by the hour, and the more organized you are, the faster and cheaper that conversation goes.
Here's what to gather and preserve.
Your lease and all amendments
Find the original signed lease and every amendment, addendum, or side letter. If you can't find the original, ask your landlord's office for a copy (you're entitled to one). Know your lease term, renewal options, and exactly what you signed.
Your personal guarantee
This is the most important document. If you personally guaranteed the lease, you need to know exactly what you're on the hook for. The full remaining term? Capped at a certain amount? Does it survive early termination? If you don't know, find it and read it. This determines your real exposure.
All correspondence with your landlord
Emails, texts, letters -- anything your landlord has sent you about rent, defaults, or the status of your tenancy. And anything you've sent them. Don't delete anything. Don't edit anything. Save it all.
Payment history
Your rent payment records for at least the last 12 months. When you paid, how much, any partial payments, any returned checks. Your lawyer needs to know exactly where you stand.
The default notice (if you got one)
If your landlord sent a formal notice of default or a cure notice, that document has deadlines in it. Know what they are. Missing a cure deadline can turn a fixable situation into an unfixable one.
Your financials
Recent P&L, bank statements, and a clear picture of what you owe (not just rent -- all debts). Three months minimum. Your landlord's attorney will ask for them. Know what they show before anyone else does.
What the law says about commercial lease defaults
In Texas, as in most states, a commercial landlord must follow specific notice and cure procedures before pursuing eviction. The Texas Property Code Chapter 93 governs commercial tenancies and requires written notice before most remedies. Separately, the U.S. Small Business Administration's guide to business legal structures and obligations outlines the federal filing requirements when a business closes or defaults. Knowing the procedural timeline gives you leverage: a landlord who has not followed proper notice procedures may not be able to accelerate the lease or pursue your personal guarantee as quickly as they imply. This is why organizing your documents before the lawyer conversation matters. The more you know going in, the less time you spend at $300 to $500 an hour getting up to speed.
What NOT to do
- Don't ignore notices or deadlines
- Don't make verbal promises to your landlord about what you'll pay
- Don't sign anything new without legal review
- Don't move equipment or inventory out of the space without understanding your lease terms
- Don't stop communicating -- going dark makes landlords escalate faster
What landlords actually do when restaurants default
The commercial real estate data on this is instructive. According to a 2024 survey by CBRE, approximately 60% of commercial landlords pursued personal guarantee enforcement when a tenant defaulted and had no other assets to recover from. That number is higher for restaurant tenants specifically, because restaurant leases are typically longer (5 to 10 years) and involve larger tenant improvement allowances that landlords want to recoup. The practical implication: if you signed a personal guarantee and you are behind on rent, the landlord's attorney is likely already reviewing your guarantee language. The question is not whether they have the right to pursue it -- in most cases they do -- but whether there is a negotiated resolution that costs less than litigation for both sides. Most landlords prefer a negotiated exit over an eviction proceeding followed by a vacancy. But that negotiation has to happen before you are in default, or at the very latest, before the landlord files. Once a lawsuit is filed, the landlord's attorney controls the timeline and costs escalate for everyone. If you are approaching default, the article on negotiating a lease buyout covers what that conversation looks like in practice.
The conversation with your lawyer
When you sit down with your attorney, you want to be able to say: "Here's my lease, here's my guarantee, here's what I owe, here's what the landlord has said, and here's my financial picture." That conversation will be 10 times more productive than showing up and saying "I'm in trouble, what do I do?"
Get organized first. Then get legal help. The order matters.