628 years on from Wat Tyler’s Peasants Revolt, a group of people who could hardly be described as peasants have led a revolt of their own.  Tenants in developments all over England have long felt that their landlords have taken advantage of all-encompassing service charge provisions to enhance the investment value of their asset at the cost of the tenants, but until recently there have been very few actual revolts.

But now a number of retailers have revolted against an increase in the service charges at the new luxury West London shopping mall owned by Westfield.  This is perhaps not too surprising, when the landlord announced, within a few days of the centre opening (amidst a huge blaze of publicity) that the service charges would not be £8.50 per square foot, as apparently indicated in the pre-contract documentation, but almost £14 per square foot.  Westfield has recently announced, after 6 months of trading operations, that it has identified savings that will result in the charge being £12.98 per square foot – still a hefty hike from the original projection.

It remains to be seen whether the Westfield retailers will accept this, or seek to make a case that the original £8.50 estimates constituted a representation binding on the landlord.  In any event, it is a salutary warning to tenants who accept new leases in a multi-let development of any kind that they should seek to get the landlord to commit to its original estimate for at least the first year or two of the development’s life, or try for a cap on year-on-year increases.