An agreement in which a tenant puts its lease behind the lender's mortgage, the lender agrees to honor the lease after a foreclosure, and the tenant agrees to treat the new owner as landlord.
The name lists the three promises. Subordination: the tenant agrees its lease ranks behind the lender’s mortgage. Non-disturbance: the lender agrees that if it forecloses, a tenant who is paying and performing can stay under its lease. Attornment: the tenant agrees to recognize whoever takes the property after foreclosure as its landlord and keep paying rent.
Each side gets something. The lender gets priority and a tenant who cannot walk away after a foreclosure, which protects the income behind the loan. The tenant gets assurance that its lease survives the landlord’s default.
Fannie Mae’s Multifamily Guide shows how a large lender frames it: each material commercial lease must be subordinate to the lien of the security instrument and must require the tenant to attorn to the lender, and the lender uses a standard SNDA form where the lease would leave it with landlord obligations it would not accept after a foreclosure. Banks follow the same logic for anchor and single tenants. The OCC handbook’s checklist asks whether a bank obtains subordination agreements when appropriate.
Read your leases first. Many already contain subordination and attornment language, and national tenants often insist on their own form, which adds time.
How it shows up in the data here
Not in the data. SNDAs are private agreements among a tenant, a landlord and a lender, and no filing on this site reports them. For banks and credit unions that hold loans on rented commercial property, see investor CRE lenders and the largest investor CRE books.
Go further
- Investor CRE lenders: Banks and credit unions holding loans on rented commercial property.
- Largest investor CRE books: Banks ranked by non-owner-occupied balance held.
- Investor commercial real estate loan checklist: On an investor property the rent pays the loan. The package is the evidence for the rent: who pays it, for how long, what it costs to collect, and who stands behind the borrower if it stops.
Related terms
- Tenant estoppel certificate: A signed statement from a tenant confirming the terms of its lease and that the lease is in effect, which a lender or buyer can then rely on.
- NNN lease (triple net): A lease where the tenant pays rent plus the property's operating costs, typically taxes, insurance and maintenance. The exact split is whatever the lease says.
- Ground lease: A long lease of land on which the tenant owns or builds the improvements. A lender to the tenant takes a lien on the leasehold, not on the land.
- Rent roll: A list of every unit or space in a property showing the tenant, the rent, the lease dates and what is vacant, as of a stated date.
- Non-owner-occupied commercial real estate: Commercial property where half or more of the loan's repayment comes from rent paid by tenants unrelated to the owner.
Sources
Plain definitions for orientation, not legal, tax or credit advice. A lender's own policy decides what it will do.