What happens if the landlord wants to change the permitted use clause before approving my buyer?

A landlord generally cannot unilaterally rewrite your lease's permitted-use clause — changing what the tenant is allowed to do in the space is an amendment to the lease itself, which typically requires both landlord and tenant agreement, not something the landlord can impose as a take-it-or-leave-it condition of consenting to an assignment. That said, they can propose it, and refusing to agree to a requested change may, depending on your lease's wording, factor into whether they're willing to approve your buyer at all.

This often comes up where the buyer intends a somewhat different use than your original business, and the landlord wants to formalize new limits — sometimes reasonably, to protect exclusivity commitments to other tenants, and sometimes as leverage disconnected from any real concern.

Because agreeing to narrow or alter the permitted-use clause can affect your buyer's ability to run the business as planned — or a future buyer's flexibility down the road — review any proposed change carefully rather than accepting it just to keep the deal moving. A Treadstone business lawyer can assess whether the landlord's proposed change is reasonable or overreaching.