A lease can support the operating evidence, but it does not by itself establish a ready enterprise or a qualifying investment equal to every future rent payment. The actual business and commitments remain central.
Check usability and remaining dependencies
Explain whether the space fits the proposed activity and what permissions or fitout remain. Link payments to the funding record and identify any cancellation or approval conditions. The enterprise still needs substantial at-risk capital, qualifying nationality and investor direction, and a credible non-marginality case.
Renting space cannot substitute for those requirements or authorize the investor to begin U.S. work. Walk the dependency list with the person responsible for each item and record what they actually say, with the date.
A lease permitting the intended use is one input. Whether the local authority has issued what the activity requires is another, and a landlord’s assurance is not the authority’s decision. Hypothetical example: a warehouse robotics assembler signs a lease permitting light industrial use, then finds the intended test cell needs a separate approval nobody had been asked to obtain.
The lease was accurate; the readiness claim was not. Hold the four conditions in view while working through the premises: treaty-country nationality, capital that is substantial and irrevocably committed and at risk, a real and operating enterprise that is not marginal, and an investor who will develop and direct it.