A retail lease is a multi-year, high-cost commitment, and the expensive mistakes are almost always things that were checkable before signing. Work through this checklist before you commit - most items take an email or a site visit, and each one can save you from a deal that cannot work.
The pre-signing checklist
- Permitted use covers your trade. Confirm in writing that the lease and local planning allow your exact business - and if not, that a change of use is realistic, not just hoped for.
- Extraction and ventilation (F&B). Check there is, or can be, a grease-extraction flue venting above roof level, with landlord consent. No extraction usually means no commercial kitchen.
- Signage and shopfront rights. Get written confirmation of what fascia, signage and shopfront changes you are allowed - especially in listed buildings, conservation areas or shopping centres with design codes.
- Turnover-rent definition of "sales". If turnover rent applies, pin down exactly what counts as sales: VAT, online orders fulfilled in store, gift cards, returns and staff discounts. The definition can swing the bill materially.
- Service-charge history. Ask for the last 2-3 years of service-charge and marketing-levy accounts, and push for a cap. Uncapped charges are a common way the all-in cost creeps up.
- Break option. Confirm whether you have a break clause and on what date - commonly year 3 or 5 - so you can exit an underperforming pitch.
- Catchment and footfall evidence. Get a pedestrian count and verify it yourself by visiting at busy and quiet times; check the catchment’s population and spending power.
- Repair and reinstatement obligations. Understand what you must repair during the lease and what condition you must return the unit in - agree a schedule of condition with photographs before you sign.
- Personal guarantee. Know whether a personal guarantee is required, and negotiate it out or cap it before signing.
Get these in writing, not on a handshake
Verbal assurances from a landlord or agent - "you will be fine to put a kitchen in", "signage is no problem" - are worth nothing when the lease says otherwise. Every item above should be confirmed in the lease, the heads of terms or a written planning response. If it is not written down, assume it is not agreed.
Checklist priorities
Deal-breakers — Permitted use, extraction (F&B), break option
Cost surprises — Turnover-rent "sales" definition, uncapped service charge
Get in writing — Signage rights, reinstatement, personal guarantee
