“These are the times that try men’s souls,” wrote Thomas Paine, beginning 1776’s influential The Crisis. It’s a sentiment painfully familiar to both Landlords and Tenants, whose patience, good humor, and financial wherewithal have been sorely tested lately. Despite everyone’s best intentions, in times like these, some Tenants can’t pay their current, contractual rents, based as they are on projections from an earlier, more robust economic environment. As a result, a Tenant will sometimes seek to restructure his commercial lease, resulting for at least some period in a lower rent. If a lease restructuring becomes necessary, how does a Tenant go about it, and what can he expect? Should a Landlord agree, and if so, what should he require? After all, a deal is a deal, trying times or not.