Reviewing retail rent reviews by audit

Rising occupational costs, unit shop oversupply and falling retail sector profits have generated demands for changes to the current valuation and leasing procedures. Tests the accuracy of rental value estimation at review by identifying the actual residual value of occupation to existing tenants, and quantifies demand volume requirements at different levels of rental increase so that the interpretation of transactional evidence can be set in an actual demand volume context by selecting two shopping centres – Brent Cross and MetroCentre – for audit. Concludes that the long‐running dispute between landlords and tenants over rent review valuations is a market information problem that can be resolved only by the release of local sales data.