rent-review

---
name: rent-review
description: Turns your lease, your rent history and the rents you can evidence into a rent review or lease renewal pack, with the letter to send and every statutory date diarised. Use when a rent review date is coming up, a section 25 or section 26 notice has landed, or the lease has under two years to run.
---

# Walk into your rent review with the evidence, not with a feeling that it is too much

You give this the lease (a scan or phone photos of the pages), what you pay now, what the landlord has proposed, and anything you can find about what nearby units actually let for. You get back four things: a plain-English reading of the clauses that decide the money, an evidence pack with every comparable sourced and dated, a walk-away number worked out before you negotiate, and a letter to the landlord or the agent that quotes the lease and the statute rather than arguing about fairness. It never tells you what the rent should be. It tells you what you can prove, what you cannot, and which of the two your surveyor needs to see first.

## What it does

1. **Work out which of the three events you are actually in, because they have different clocks.** A rent review inside a running lease is governed only by the review clause. A lease renewal at the end of the term is governed by Part II of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1954, which says at section 24 that "A tenancy to which this Part of this Act applies shall not come to an end unless terminated in accordance with the provisions of this Part". A contracted-out lease has no renewal right at all. Write at the top of the pack which one applies, the lease start date, the term, the expiry date, every review date, and whether the lease is inside or outside the 1954 Act. The government's guide for tenants and landlords warns that "This is a very specialised area and you can trip up badly without expert advice", so this pack is written to brief an adviser quickly, not to replace one.

2. **Copy out the five clauses that decide the number, word for word, with their clause numbers.** They are: the rent and payment dates, the rent review clause (frequency, basis, whether it is upwards only, and who triggers it), the repairing obligation, the service charge and insurance provisions, and the alienation clause. Type them verbatim into the pack with the page and clause reference beside each, and never paraphrase a clause you intend to rely on. The RICS Code for leasing business premises says at 4.4 that leases "should allow either party to start the rent review process and should not impose time limits intended to prevent a review or set a new rent through inaction by either party". If your clause does not, flag it as a point for the solicitor rather than arguing it yourself.

3. **Say out loud whether the review is upwards only, because it changes what you are negotiating for.** The RICS guide for landlords and tenants records that "Traditionally, commercial leases have imposed rent review provisions that are 'upwards only', which allow the rent to be increased but never decreased", and warns that "the rent will not reduce even if there is a fall in the market rent or inflation index by the review date". If your clause is upwards only, no evidence pack can take the rent below the passing rent, so the realistic target is holding it and winning elsewhere: a capped increase, a rent-free period, a landlord contribution to works, or a break right. Put that in one sentence at the front so nobody spends a month chasing an outcome the lease forbids.

4. **Build the comparable evidence from lettings you can actually source, and label the ones you cannot.** For each comparable record: the address and unit, the floor area with the measurement basis stated, the rent per square foot or per square metre, the date the letting completed, the lease length, any rent-free period or capital contribution, the repairing basis, and where you got it from. Asking rents from agents' windows and portals are not lettings; record them as "quoting rent, not an agreed letting" and keep them in a separate list. A comparable with no date is worthless, because the whole exercise is what the unit would let for at the review date. Rent-free periods matter more than owners expect: £30,000 a year with nine months rent free on a five-year term is not £30,000 of value, and the RICS Code is explicit that a headline rent should not be the definition of market rent unless that was expressly agreed.

5. **Strip out everything the valuation is required to ignore.** On a 1954 Act renewal, section 34 sets the rent at that "at which ... the holding might reasonably be expected to be let in the open market by a willing lessor", and then disregards "any effect on rent of the fact that the tenant has or his predecessors in title have been in occupation", "any goodwill attached to the holding by reason of the carrying on thereat of the business", and "any effect on rent of an improvement". The government guide puts the last one in plain words: the court must ignore "improvements by the tenant or predecessors either during the current tenancy or during the last 21 years, other than those required by the tenancy agreement". So list every improvement you paid for, with the date, the invoice and the cost: the extraction canopy, the cellar cooling, the new shopfront, the toilets you rebuilt. A tenant who fitted out a shell and is then quoted a rent based on a fitted restaurant is being charged twice for their own money, and the invoices are the only thing that stops it.

6. **Price the terms, not just the rent, and show the trade in pounds.** The RICS guide states that "the rent cannot be viewed in isolation without considering the other terms of lease" and that a tenant "should, for example, expect to pay more if the landlord takes responsibility for repairs than if the tenant were responsible for them". Build a second table putting a figure against each term proposed: the length of term, any break right and its conditions, the repairing basis, the service charge cap, the rent deposit, and the dilapidations exposure. A five-year certain term with no break at £2,000 a month is a £120,000 commitment, and that number, not the monthly figure, is what gets compared with moving.

7. **Check the rateable value in the same sitting, because it moves with the rent and it is a separate bill.** The most recent revaluation "came into effect in England and Wales on 1 April 2026" and "It's based on open market rental values from 1 April 2024", so a rent agreed now can feed a future valuation. Look up the current rateable value and check the property details the Valuation Office holds are right. Small business rate relief matters at these sizes: "You will not pay business rates on a property with a rateable value of £12,000 or less", tapering "from 100% to 0%" between £12,001 and £15,000. If the details are wrong, the route is a Check and then a Challenge through a business rates valuation account, and GOV.UK warns that "You may have to pay a penalty if you knowingly submit false information to the Valuation Office", so submit only measurements you can evidence.

8. **Work out the walk-away number before you write a single word to the landlord.** Three figures: the most you can pay and still hit the trading result you need, taken from your own accounts rather than from a percentage rule; the total cost of moving, including fit-out, the lost trade during the move and the dilapidations claim on the unit you leave; and, on a 1954 Act renewal where the landlord is opposing, whether compensation is in play. The government guide explains it is "based on rateable value and depends on how long the tenant has been in business at the premises", with under fourteen years giving "a sum equal to the 'appropriate multiplier' times the rateable value of the premises occupied at the end of the tenancy" and fourteen years or more giving twice that. Put the walk-away figure in writing first, because a number decided under pressure in a phone call is not a decision.

9. **Write the letter, and diary every date backwards from the deadline.** The letter states the property, the lease date, the clause being operated, your proposed rent with the evidence attached as a numbered schedule, and a request to meet. It contains no adjectives about what is fair. It ends by naming your surveyor and solicitor if you have appointed them. Then build the date list. A section 25 notice from the landlord or a section 26 request from the tenant is served "At least six but not more than 12 months before the date the landlord wants the tenancy to end or the tenant wants the new one to begin". A landlord who wants to oppose "must respond to a tenant's 'section 26' request within two months of receiving it". And the one that ends businesses: the application to the court must be made by the date proposed in the notice, because "If there is no application by this date, the tenant loses the right to renew the tenancy", although the parties "can agree to extend the deadline for applications to the court, but they must do so in writing before the original deadline expires". Either side can also send a "section 40" form "during the last two years of the lease, asking for more information", and the recipient "must respond within one month". The RICS guide says both parties should take advice "not later than a year before the term is due to end". Set the reminders at eighteen months, twelve months, and the day the notice window opens.

## Then it checks

1. Every clause the pack relies on is quoted verbatim with its clause number and the page it came from, and no argument rests on a paraphrase.
2. Every comparable carries an address, a floor area with the measurement basis named, a completion date, a rent expressed per unit of area, and a source; anything without a completion date sits in the "quoting rent, not an agreed letting" list and is excluded from the average.
3. The pack states in one sentence whether the review is upwards only, and if it is, the stated objective is not a rent reduction.
4. Every tenant improvement claimed under the disregard has a date, an invoice reference and a cost, and improvements required by the lease are listed separately because they are not disregarded.
5. The date schedule shows the lease expiry, the notice window opening and closing dates, the response deadline, and the court application deadline, each as an actual calendar date rather than a description.
6. The walk-away number, the cost of moving and the current total occupancy cost all appear as figures, and none of them reads "approx" or "tbc".

Any check fails: name it, redo that step once. Failed twice: say what is wrong and stop.

## Rules
- Public information only.
- Never invent a fact, a number or a quote.
- Anything sent in someone's name says whose name it is.
- Never put a comparable in the pack that you cannot source. One unsourced rent lets the landlord's surveyor discredit the whole schedule, including the comparables that were real, and you only get one first exchange.
- Never state what the market rent is. State the range the evidence supports, the number of comparables behind it, and the date they were agreed. Valuing the property is the surveyor's job and their signature carries weight that yours does not.
- Never let a statutory date pass while negotiating. Missing the court application deadline on a 1954 Act renewal ends the right to renew outright, and no amount of goodwill in the negotiation brings it back.
- Never sign anything that removes security of tenure, or agree to surrender, without taking advice first. The warning notice for a contracted-out lease says in terms: "You will have no right to stay in the premises when the lease ends."
- This output is a working document prepared for the owner's chartered surveyor and solicitor to check before it is sent or relied on. It reads a lease and assembles evidence; it is not advice on what your lease means or on what rent a court would set.

## Built from
- UK Public General Acts, "Landlord and Tenant Act 1954, Part II", https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/Eliz2/2-3/56/part/II, read 14 September 2026: sections 24, 25, 26, 30 and 34, which gave step 1 the continuation rule, step 5 the valuation basis and the three disregards, and step 9 the six to twelve month notice window.
- Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, "Renewing and ending business leases: a guide for tenants and landlords", https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/renewing-and-ending-business-leases-a-guide-for-tenants-and-landlords, published 7 June 2004, last updated 30 July 2026, read 14 September 2026: the plain-English version of the notice windows, the two-month response to a section 26 request, the court application deadline and what happens if it is missed, the 21-year improvement disregard, the section 40 information request, and the compensation basis in step 8.
- RICS, "Code for leasing business premises, England and Wales, 1st edition", February 2020, effective 1 September 2020, https://www.rics.org/content/dam/ricsglobal/documents/standards/February_2020_Code_For_Leasing_Business_Premises_England_And_Wales_1st_Edition.pdf, read 14 September 2026: paragraphs 4.3 and 4.4 on rent review clauses and headline rents, appendix B5 on upwards-only reviews and the improvements disregard, and the occupancy cost checklist that shaped the terms table in step 6.
- GOV.UK, "Introduction to business rates: Revaluation", https://www.gov.uk/introduction-to-business-rates/revaluation, "Apply for business rates relief: Small business rate relief", https://www.gov.uk/apply-for-business-rate-relief/small-business-rate-relief, and "How to check your rateable value is correct", https://www.gov.uk/guidance/how-to-check-your-rateable-value-is-correct, all read 14 September 2026: the 1 April 2026 revaluation and 1 April 2024 valuation date, the £12,000 and £15,000 relief thresholds, and the Check then Challenge sequence with its penalty warning, which together are step 7.

# rent-review

## You are given
A folder for one UK hospitality premises containing any of: the lease as a scan, a PDF or phone photographs of the pages, any licence to alter, deed of variation, side letter, rent review memorandum or contracting-out notice and declaration, the landlord's or agent's proposal letter, any section 25 notice, section 26 request or section 40 notice already served, rent demands and bank lines showing what is actually paid, service charge and insurance demands, invoices for works the tenant paid for, agents' particulars and letting details for nearby units, a business rates bill and the rateable value as read from the owner's business rates valuation account, and the owner's own accounts.

The papers will be out of order, some pages will be photographs of photographs, and some will be missing entirely.

Claude reads the lease and works out what it means. Codex extracts, transcribes, tabulates and counts dates.

## Produce
Write into an `output/` folder next to the inputs:

1. `rent-review-pack.xlsx` with these sheets, in this order:

   `Lease facts` - columns: `Fact`, `Value as written`, `Clause or page`, `Source file`, `Status`. `Status` is `found` or `not found in the pages supplied`. Write one row for each of: lease date, landlord as named, tenant as named, guarantor as named, premises as described, permitted use as written, term commencement date, term length, contractual expiry date, whether the pages record an agreement excluding sections 24 to 28 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1954, the date of any warning notice, the date of any tenant declaration or statutory declaration, passing rent, rent payment dates, each rent review date, each break date, break conditions as written, rent deposit, service charge basis, insurance basis.

   `Review mechanics` - columns: `Attribute`, `Wording quoted from the clause`, `Clause number`, `Page`, `Source file`. One row for each of: review frequency, review dates, basis of valuation as written, upwards only wording as written, who may trigger the review, time limits as written, whether time is stated to be of the essence, assumptions listed, disregards listed, dispute resolution route as written, interest on back rent as written. Every cell in `Wording quoted from the clause` is a quotation. Never a summary.

   `Comparables` - columns: `comp_id`, `Address`, `Unit`, `Floor area`, `Area unit`, `Measurement basis as stated`, `Rent per annum (GBP)`, `Rent per area unit (GBP)`, `Letting completed date`, `Lease length (years)`, `Rent free months`, `Capital contribution (GBP)`, `Repairing basis as stated`, `Break rights as stated`, `Source`, `Source date`, `Evidence type`. `Evidence type` is `agreed letting` or `quoting rent, not an agreed letting`. Sorted by `Letting completed date`, most recent first.

   `Evidence range` - columns: `Basis`, `Count of agreed lettings`, `Earliest completion date`, `Latest completion date`, `Lowest rent per area unit (GBP)`, `Highest rent per area unit (GBP)`, `Median rent per area unit (GBP)`, `Subject floor area`, `Subject measurement basis`, `Range applied to the subject, low (GBP)`, `Range applied to the subject, high (GBP)`, `Passing rent (GBP)`, `Landlord proposal (GBP)`, `Status`. `Status` reads `arithmetic on the schedule, not a valuation` on every row.

   `Improvements` - columns: `Improvement`, `Date completed`, `Invoice number`, `Invoice date`, `Supplier`, `Cost net of VAT (GBP)`, `Paid by`, `Required by the lease`, `Clause requiring it`, `Licence to alter reference`, `Within 21 years of`, `Evidence file`. `Paid by` is `tenant`, `landlord` or `not evidenced`. `Required by the lease` is `yes`, `no` or `not stated`. Sorted with `no` rows first, then `not stated`, then `yes`.

   `Terms priced` - columns: `Term`, `As currently held`, `As proposed`, `Figure (GBP)`, `Basis of figure`, `Source file`. One row for each of: term length, total commitment over the term, break right and its conditions, repairing basis, service charge, service charge cap, insurance, rent deposit, dilapidations exposure as quoted, business rates, rent free period, capital contribution.

   `Occupancy cost` - columns: `Cost line`, `Annual amount (GBP)`, `Source file`, `Source date`, `Status`. `Status` is `evidenced`, `stated by owner` or `not held`. One row for each of: passing rent, proposed rent, service charge, insurance, rateable value, business rates before relief, small business rate relief applied, business rates payable, and a `Total occupancy cost` row for the current position and one for the proposed position.

   `Date schedule` - columns: `Event`, `Calendar date`, `How it was calculated`, `Source`. Events, at minimum: lease commencement, each rent review date, contractual expiry, earliest date a section 25 notice or section 26 request may be served, latest date it may be served, the two-month deadline for a landlord response to a section 26 request, the date proposed in any notice already served, the court application deadline, the date the section 40 window opens, any section 40 response deadline, and reminders at eighteen months before expiry, twelve months before expiry, and the day the notice window opens. Every `Calendar date` is a real DD Month YYYY date. Never a description, never "approx", never "tbc".

   `Not held` - columns: `Item`, `Where it was looked for`, `Reason not held`, `Effect on the pack`. `Effect on the pack` is one of `clause not quoted`, `date not calculated`, `comparable excluded`, `figure left blank`, `improvement not claimed`.

2. `clauses-verbatim.md` - the five clauses that decide the money, typed out word for word under five headings: rent and payment dates, rent review, repairing obligation, service charge and insurance, alienation. Above each quotation write the clause number, the page number and the source file. No paraphrase, no summary line, no commentary, no note on what any of it means.
3. `comparables.csv` - the `Comparables` sheet, flat.
4. `date-schedule.csv` - the `Date schedule` sheet, flat, for printing and diarising.
5. `not-held.csv` - the `Not held` sheet, flat.
6. `letter-draft.md` - `DRAFT - UNSENT` on the first line. The property as described in the lease, the lease date, the clause being operated quoted verbatim with its number, the proposed rent exactly as supplied by the owner or their surveyor in the inputs, the numbered schedule of comparables referencing `comp_id` values from `comparables.csv`, a request to meet, and the named surveyor and solicitor where the inputs name them. Where no proposed rent is supplied, that slot reads `figure to be supplied by the surveyor` and stays that way.
7. `README.md` - the files read, the page count, which of the three events the papers show, and everything that could not be resolved.

## Rules
- **Never assert what a clause means.** Codex extracts and quotes. It never writes that a clause is upwards only, that time is of the essence, that the lease is inside or outside the 1954 Act, that a review has been validly triggered, or that a party is entitled to anything. Where the wording is in the papers it is quoted in `Review mechanics` and the reader decides. Where it is not, the row is `not found in the pages supplied`.
- **Never state what the rent should be, and never call anything a market rent or a valuation.** `Evidence range` is arithmetic on the schedule and every row says so. Never write "the rent should be", "the correct rent", "worth", "over-rented" or "under-rented".
- Quote every clause verbatim with its clause number, page number and source file. Never paraphrase a clause the pack relies on, and never join two clauses into one quotation.
- Every comparable must carry a source and a completion date. A letting with no completion date, and every asking rent, agents' particular and portal listing, is `quoting rent, not an agreed letting` and is excluded from every count, range and median in `Evidence range`. Never fill a missing floor area, rent, date or measurement basis with an estimate or a figure from your own knowledge of the market.
- Never mix measurement bases in one range. Where the schedule holds more than one basis, write one `Evidence range` row per basis and state the basis in each.
- Every date in `Date schedule` is arithmetic on a date that appears in the papers, and `How it was calculated` names that date and the count applied to it. A date that cannot be counted from a supplied date is `not held` and goes in `not-held.csv`. Never guess a date and never carry a date forward from a previous year.
- Every figure must trace to a supplied input file. Never fill a gap with a typical service charge, a percentage uplift, an inflation index, an estimate of moving costs or a rateable value read from anywhere but the owner's own bill or valuation account.
- List improvements required by the lease separately from improvements the tenant paid for voluntarily. Never state that any improvement is or is not disregarded.
- Never write a compensation figure unless the rateable value and the multiplier both appear in the inputs. Never supply a multiplier from your own knowledge.
- Send nothing, sign nothing, serve nothing and submit nothing anywhere. `letter-draft.md` stays a draft on disk, and any rateable value question is written as a question for the owner's surveyor, never submitted.
- British English, £, DD Month YYYY dates. No em dashes. No emoji.
- Every output file carries, as its first line or its first row, the words: `Working document for the owner's chartered surveyor and solicitor to check before it is sent or relied on. Not advice on what the lease means or on what rent a court would set.`

## Return
A list of the files written with their absolute paths and row counts, the number of lease pages read, which of the five clauses were found and which were not, the count of comparables split into agreed lettings and quoting rents, the date range the agreed lettings cover, the rent per area unit range and the count behind it, the number of tenant improvements evidenced with invoices and the number claimed without, every date in `date-schedule.csv` that could not be calculated, and every item in `not-held.csv`.