Ten recurring coworking situations and the clauses or questions behind each one

Flexible workspace goes wrong quietly. Nothing dramatic happens; a team just finds that the arrangement it signed is not the arrangement it thought it had. Here are ten situations that recur, each built around a clause or an assumption rather than around a place. None describes a real operator.

What to take away

1. The desks that were never all used

A team of twelve bought twelve desks and averaged seven people a day. The arrangement was priced per person, so the unused capacity showed up every month. They had bought for the peak because the peak felt safer, and nobody had counted the actual days.

2. The meeting room allowance that ran out in week two

The fee included room credits. The team's work was mostly meetings with clients. From the middle of the first month every booking was billed, and the metered total exceeded the membership fee.

3. The notice that ran both ways, unequally

The member gave a long notice; the operator could give a short one. Nobody read the two clauses side by side until the operator restructured a floor and the team had weeks to find somewhere else.

4. The price that moved during the commitment

The agreement allowed an increase with notice. The member had understood the commitment as a price lock. It was a commitment to stay, not a commitment on the amount, and those are different things.

5. The operator who was a tenant

The space closed because the operator's own arrangement with the building ended. The members had contracted with the operator, not with the building, and had no standing with the landlord at all. The question that would have surfaced this is simply: what is your arrangement with this building, and what happens to us if it ends.

6. The registered address that became a problem

A company had registered at the address and received official mail there. When the arrangement ended, changing the registration took time the business did not have, and mail went to a building nobody was in.

7. The confidential work in a shared room

Screens were visible, calls were audible, and documents were left out. Nothing was stolen and nothing needed to be. The requirement had been written as a desk count rather than as a description of the work.

8. The permission that did not cover the activity

A member began a small assembly and packing operation from a private room. General office use was permitted at the address; that was not. Permission attaches to the activity rather than to the room, and the way to check is in zoning and permits.

9. The building that did not perform when full

The space was pleasant on a quiet tour and unbearable at capacity. Air handling is designed against a load, and the reference for outdoor air rates is ASHRAE 62.1. The tour had been at ten in the morning on a Friday.

10. The exit that cost twice

The member left before the next space was ready, and paid a notice period and a new arrangement at the same time. The overlap was three weeks and nobody had modeled it, because the model stopped at the move date.

What the ten have in common

Nine of the ten are one question each. The tenth is arithmetic. That is the honest summary of due diligence on a flexible workspace: an hour of questions and a spreadsheet.

The three clauses to read twice

Notice. Both directions, with the actual periods written out, and anything that shortens either.

Price. What can change, when, and with what warning.

Metered items. Everything outside the fee, with your own usage estimated against it rather than the operator's average.

What you are signing is usually a license rather than an interest in land, which is why these clauses carry so much weight: they are most of your protection. The pillar on coworking space explains what that difference means when something goes wrong, and the equivalent clauses in a conventional arrangement are in commercial leasing.

If the reason you are in flexible space is that you cannot yet size a permanent office, doing that sizing work anyway is worthwhile, and the method is in office space.

Common questions

Are these operator failures or member failures?

Mostly neither. They are failures to read three clauses and ask five questions. Operators are selling a product with terms, and the terms are not hidden; they are just not read.

Should I ask for a copy of the operator's own lease?

You can ask, and you will usually be refused. What you can reasonably get is a plain answer about what happens to members if the operator's arrangement ends, and a refusal to answer that is itself a data point.

How do I test a space properly before signing?

Visit twice, once at the busiest hour. Sit for an hour. Take a call. Try the network. Ask a current member how the metered items have behaved for them.

Is a longer commitment safer?

It is cheaper per month and less safe, because the reason for being in flexible space is usually uncertainty. Buying a discount against something you cannot forecast is how the discount disappears.