What’s So Gross About Sales?

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If the term “Gross Sales” had an intuitive meaning, we wouldn’t have had grist for today’s mill. And, thousands and thousands of us wouldn’t have the opportunity to write our own definition for that term. What a sad world that would make!

Percentage rent provisions are common and almost always rely on the starting concept of “gross rent.” But, while “gross rent” might have a generally understood meaning outside of the leasing community, that certainly isn’t the case inside the leasing community. If it had a common meaning, it would be an undefined term just as are most of the words and terms found in leases (and other agreements). Just think of this: we don’t define every word in our agreements (such as leases and mortgages); we rely on common understanding. That’s true even where words succumb to a choice of definitions. In those cases, many as they are, we understand those words and phrases in the context where found.

We’re not talking about “gross sales” as the number to which the “percentage” is applied because, at the end of the day, no one applies the “percentage” to “gross sales.” We apply it to an “adjusted” sales figure. Wherever we start as “gross,” you can be sure you’ll find a list of deductions or exclusions. These are two different “don’t count these” concepts, though, at the end of the day, their effect is the same. The “number” against which the “percentage” is applied is reduced by deductions and exclusions. [Read more…]

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What’s The Percentage In Paying Percentage Rent?

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First, we’ll define “heresy”: dissension, dissent, nonconformity, heterodoxy, unorthodoxy, apostasy, blasphemy, freethinking – opinions profoundly at odds with what is generally accepted. Now, we’re going to write a few things about “percentage rent,” beginning with a heretical view, “Why should a tenant pay percentage rent in the first place?”

Mind you, we’re not talking about a deal where the entire rent is a function of a tenant’s sales; we’re talking about the usual situation where the tenant has to pay rent even if it sells nothing. [We know of a mail order merchant maven who regales everyone with a story about the biggest flop item he ever handled. The story he tells is that he sold three units and got six returns.] Why should a landlord be a partner on the upside, but not on the downside? Ruminations has written about the concept that, in exchange for money paid as rent to a landlord, the tenant gets exclusive possession of the premises until an agreed-upon date. It’s like buying the premises with the obligation to re-convey it on that date. Further, think about a fairly common lease provision: “landlord and tenant are not partners, joint venturers, etc.” [Read more…]

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Why Do You Think Your Lease’s Audit Clause Provides Any Benefit Or Protection?

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Audit clauses in leases are not throw-away provisions. They are not something to be copied from the last document and the one before that and so on. While intended by landlords to “make” pass-through cost billings “final,” as often written, they won’t satisfy that purpose. Similarly, a tenant or other kind of occupant who wants to “contain” its landlord’s right to audit sales records for percentage rent purposes also may want to read what follows. For simplicity (and because the overwhelming number of such situations involve tenancies), we’ll speak of tenants and leases, but the same concepts apply to Covenants, Conditions and Restrictions (CC&Rs) and similar, but differently named, documents. [Read more…]

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