How do we lease our church?

Q: “Ok, so I’m pretty convinced on leasing our church that’s closing, instead of selling it (See the article on Closing our Church). How do we manage the legalities of this?” 

A: Ok, first, as mentioned in the previous article, you have a meeting of your board and make a proposal to change the By Laws to include the scenario of the church’s real property to be leased to another church in the event that your congregation stops meeting.  

Call a church business meeting (or conference or whatever you call it in your movement) and amend your By Laws to reflect this. At this time, as your congregation is voting to stop meeting as a church, you will need to elect officers to oversee the leasing of the building. Your corporation papers require a President, Vice President and a Secretary-Treasurer. Elect these officers from those willing to handle this task. It could be a couple of Board Members and the current Pastor, if he is willing to stay involved.  

These officers would be responsible to get a real estate company to list the church for lease. The real estate agent will be responsible to list the property, show it and present for your approval any interested and qualified potential lessees. Also, the real estate company will oversee the collection of the lease money, so you don’t have to fool with that every month. They charge a very small commission for this. 

The job of the new corporate officers will be to use the lease money to maintain insurance and to provide for repairs as needed. They may also take a small stipend for their oversight, each month. 

Again (see previous article), this keeps a church functioning in your building, it supports missions, church planting or whatever other cause you want to support in the Kingdom of God, and at the same time, retains ownership of the building, should a future generation want to plant a church there again. Also: by retaining ownership of the building, it is possible to use it for collateral or for equity loans should there be a worthy project or purpose in the future. 

I’m not an attorney, and you will of course want the input of a real estate attorney, but what I’m telling you here is simple and has been done frequently by congregations who want to further the Kingdom of God and remain true to the vision of their founding members.

Copyright Steven L. Davis  www.SteveDavis.org