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Anon - perhaps you have a crystal ball that tells you how any given store will fare 5, 10 or even15 years into the future. Without such a thing I suppose we’re all irresponsible in your eyes. After all it seems that in your world you can’t do anything without such rock solid certainty. Whilst I’m sure that’s something we’d all love to have the luxury of in these uncertain times, I’m not quite as clear on how many property deals would be done if that were an absolute requirement.

By your standards no one should ever take a lease unless they are absolutely certain that, come what may and for many years into the future, they will always have upward only turnover. If you can do that I’m very envious as I don’t know of any other retailer that could realistically and confidently have that expectation, especially with recent history in mind. So maybe you should step out from behind your anonymity and let us all in on the secret.

But on the face of it I’ll go along with your idea. Presumably this expectation of precognitive business acumen works both ways though. So lets add the ‘crystal ball clause’ to all commercial leases that says the landlord guarantees upwards only profits for any given store. Then I’d agree that any retailer accepting an upward only review without such an additional guarantee would be irresponsible.

Otherwise I’d re-iterate that common sense dictates a realistic partnership approach to market forces rather than reliance on fairy tale clauses, bravado and crossed fingers.