Jul 2025 – 1.0 Buried deep within the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill 2025 published on 11 July 2025 (“Bill 2025”) is, in the word of one commentator, a seismic proposal that will, if as and when the Bill becomes law, affect all landlords and tenants of commercial property. Despite buried deep, pages 322-329 are also the last few pages of this gigantic Bill, which makes them easy to find.
1.1 Bill 2025 is to “Make provision about combined authorities, combined county authorities, the Greater London Authority, local councils, police and crime commissioners and fire and rescue authorities, local audit and terms in business tenancies about rent.” (my italics)
1.2 Bill 2025 Schedule 31 – to insert Schedules 7A and 7B before Schedule 8 in the Landlord and Tenant Act 1954 – proposal is for upward-only rent reviews to be unlawful.
1.2.1 Some 30 years ago, the Government then proposed to ban upward-only rent reviews but was, following consultation with commercial property market industry representatives, such as the British Property Federation (whose members are landlords, investors, owners, developers, funders, agents) and trade bodies, such as the British Retail Consortium, defeated by the powerful landlord lobby and the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors. The RICS, reasoning it should be voluntary, subsequently issued The Code for Leasing Business Premises in England and Wales 2007, sub-titled Leasing Business Premises: Landlord Code.
1.2.2 The RICS quest for the Code was to promote efficiency and fairness in landlord and tenant relationships. It was not a mandatory Code, (meaning chartered surveyors did not have to advise and recommend landlords to agree to the Code’s suggestions), and more importantly it was not obligatory – as if the RICS, a non-statutory body, could in any event have insisted – for landlords and tenants. What the Code did do, however, was to provide tenants and legal advisers with a host of ideas for what could be agreed in the wording and phrasing of leases – and, in my view, paved the way for why solicitors when drafting leases and related documents for landlords sometimes give the impression of acting for the tenant.
[1.2.3 As an aside, the one thing that is important to remember when you instruct a chartered surveyor is that the person concerned, known as a member, must comply with numerous mandatory dictates by the RICS itself, even if such dictates conflict with what you as the landlord or tenant want. This is not professional advice and recommendation in the purist form, but indoctrinated advice and recommendation intended to make you feel guilty if you do not accept it. If you agree, then no issue. But if you succumb then if you are a tenant, you could be missing out on the potential for minimising your property costs, and if you are a landlord, the potential for maximising the performance of your investments.
1.2.3.1 More than 150 years ago a small group of surveyors decided they were superior to other surveyors at the time so set out to break the loyalty between other surveyors and their clients by the only way possible which was to give the impression that other surveyors’ standards were inferior. Nowadays, through its members becoming in-house surveyors infiltrating corporate landlords and tenants, for its virtual monopoly of dispute resolution and deciding rents, for the range of services its members provide, the grip that the RICS has on the property market is wide-ranging and the influence of its members akin to tentacles. It is telling that more and more experienced surveyors are not becoming chartered surveyors because they value their freedom of thought and the benefit of unrestricted advice to clients.]
1.2.4 I mention the above “as an aside” because, in my view, the reason the incumbent Government did not consult the commercial property industry before announcing this proposal to ban upward-only rent reviews was to avoid politicians being talked out of it again. The official reason for the proposal is to help rejuvenate ‘High Streets’ and small tenants leasing shops on the High Street, but if that were the only objective then the proposal could have been confined. It is not. The proposal affects all landlords and all tenants and all business tenancies under the Landlord and Tenant Act 1954 Part II – whether inside or outside the Act.
1.3 Bill 2025 is not law. To become law, Bill 2025 will have to be debated by Parliament, the House of Commons, the House of Lords, the Parliamentary committee stages, and so on. As it will be some time before Bill 2025 gets to the stage of Royal Assent, and an ‘in force’ date, whether the wording of the proposal will remain intact is unknown. So all that can be said about the proposal is at the second stage of its reading, now.
2.0 The phrase “upward-only rent review” is a technical term which, being popular, means different things to different people. For anyone who does not know what it actually means, there is no such thing as an upward-only rent review. The “upward” element does not refer to the valuation or calculation of the review rent itself, but to the rent payable after the review is agreed or ascertained as not less than the rent payable immediately before the review.
2.0.1 ‘Agreed’ means agreed by the parties to the review. ‘Ascertained’ means decided by a third party under the dispute resolution procedure in the lease. A third party may be an arbitrator or an independent expert, depending on the lease. Either or both parties are often represented by surveyors or others.
2.1 A typical rent review valuation basis is the (open) market rent – ‘open’ is considered superfluous. Since the RICS 2007 Code many rent reviews have also become index-linked, commonly to the RPI (Retail Price index), more recently to the CPI (Consumer Price index), and occasionally the CPIH (CPI plus housing costs). Those indices are measurements of inflation. The RPI (generally considered more favourable to landlords) is no longer an official statistic, but the Office for National Statistics continues to publish the RPI because it is widely used. In 2030, the RPI and the CPI are to be merged. Index-linked rent review is what is known as a formula review, an arithmetical calculation – it is nothing to do with the property, and outside the control of the landlord and the tenant. Index-linked reviews are typically found where the availability of open market rental evidence is difficult or impossible to find, in leases of specialist property categories and uses, and where the landlord wants to be reasonably sure of getting an increase that tallies with the commercial purpose of a rent review to keep pace with changing values.
2.1.1 A market rent does not exist in isolation. As I say, rent is the product of the terms and conditions of the lease or the lease to be granted. As there is no standard form of lease for commercial property, terms and conditions vary depending upon what the parties agreed before the lease was completed, and the same or different parties for any subsequent variations. A single word or phrase can often result in a substantial difference in rent. For example, if the basic market rent were £50,000 pa then for the landlord an ill-considered word or phrase might reduce the rent to £30,000 pa. Or vice versa. A word or phrase might be considered so advantageous that a tenant would be expected to pay a higher rent.
2.1.2 For a tenant, an index-linked rent review is a gamble on economic conditions. As the courts will not rewrite what in case law is known as a ‘bad bargain’, well-advised tenants will only agree to index-linked reviews subject to what is known as “cap and collar”. The cap is a maximum percentage increase, the collar a minimum percentage increase. Typically, a minimum would be 1% to 2%, the cap no more than about 6%. It doesn’t mean that the rent on review would increase by at least the minimum or the maximum, as that would depend upon the arithmetical formula in the lease, and the percentage change in inflation between the review dates. The norm is for the formula at each review date to be hinged to the index figure at the start of the lease. As the indices are published on or around the 17th of each month and one month behind, a well-drafted index-linked review will have as its base month the month that is 2 months before the start of the lease and 2 months before the review date.
2.1.3 In some leases, the rent is geared to the tenant’s business turnover. Known as a turnover rent, such leases are commonly found in edge- and out- of town outlet centres, designer outlets, and such like where the prices of goods offered for sale by retailers are approximately 70% of the prices of the same goods in the retailers’ high street shops. Less common are town centre shop leases whose upward-only rent reviews are a combination of market rent and or plus a fixed percentage of the tenant’s turnover.
2.1.3.1 In designer outlet centres and such like, the leases are normally outside LTA54 with regular or rolling mutual break rights – so that tenant can terminate if the venture isn’t profitable or the landlord can relocate or eject underperforming tenants – and the rent a minimum base rent plus a percentage of the tenant’s turnover (the percentage varies depending on the nature of the tenant’s business). The turnover exclusive of VAT.
2.1.3.2 For many years, I acted for a multiple retailer, the majority of whose shops were in outlet centres. Although, in most cases, the rent payable at each review could go up or down, one particular landlord’s leases enabled the rent payable at the previous review to become the minimum at the next review.
2.2 Currently, a typical rent review will either be to the (open) market rent or a combination of open market rent and index-linked. For the upward-only, the wording of the review is typically the greater (higher) of the rent passing immediately before the review date and the open market rent and the index-linking. In other words, if the market rent is lower and the index-linked calculation a decrease, the rent payable after the review is agreed or ascertained would be the same as the rent payable before the review.
2.2.1 Typically, the minimum rent payable at the first review will be the rent at the start of the lease (or if the lease does not stipulate otherwise, then average rent pa over the period between the start of the lease and the first review date, if at the start was a rent-free period or reduced rent). At the second review the minimum agreed at the first review, at the third review the minimum at the second review; and so on. So, for example, if an uncapped index-linked review increased the rent payable at the second review, then even if the index fell by the third review, the minimum would still be the higher agreed at the second review. It is not only uncapped index-linked reviews, but also cap and collar reviews that increase the rent between each previous review to a minimum rent immediately before a next review.
2.2.2 Where the upward-only review is to the market rent, the rent at each review depends upon what the parties agree, whether evidence-based or not, subject to the same as the rent payable immediately before the review date, no more, no less. Where an increase is agreed or ascertained, that rent becomes the minimum payable for the remainder of the lease term. If at the next review, the market rent is lower, the review itself is known as nil increase and the minimum rent continues. In practice, the premises become over-rented which can adversely affect the tenant’s likelihood of assigning the tenancy (lease); or sub-letting – if the lease requires any sub-let to be at a rent not less than the rent reserved in the lease.
2.2.2.1 Nil increase does not mean the market rent is too high: it can also mean the market rent is the same as the rent payable immediately before the review, or that any increase would be so slight as to be not worth pursuing. Not worth pursuing is a matter of opinion. For example, I have clients who will go to a third party for an extra £250 a year. As an increase is indicative of the direction the market for the premises is taking, any landlord concerned about the performance of the investment is unlikely to be content with nil increase. It is important also to note that assuming 10% yield, every £250 pa extra equates to £2500 capital value. For one property, that might not seem worthwhile, but it makes sense when multiplied by the number of properties in the.portfolio.
2.2.2.2 In my opinion, where surveyors go wrong is agreeing nil increase in a memorandum recording the revised rent because that is tantamount to confirming that rent is the market rent. Surveyors generally cannot be bothered to agree the actual market rent because they consider it academic when the rent payable is higher. However, what the memorandum should record is the actual market rent because the rent payable after the review is agreed or ascertained is a separate issue. When acting for a tenant, the advantage of insisting the market rent in the memorandum, even when the rent payable is higher, is that it can cause problems for landlords whose investments are mortgaged and the landlord needs to convince the lender the investment is performing. On occasions, in exchange for agreeing for the memorandum to be nil increase, I have, for the tenant, obtained reductions in the rent payable.
Whenever I act for a landlord on review to be decided by a third party, I make it clear to the third party that, unless the lease stipulates that the third party is to determine the rent payable, the third party should only decide the market rent.
2.3 Upward only rent review has been a feature of the commercial property market for decades. As a cushion for landlords, it is a pinnacle of investment finance and mortgage. At the very least, (assuming the tenant doesn’t go broke), the total rent payable throughout the term of the lease will never be lower than the starting rent multiplied by the number of years of the lease term.
2.3.1 On renewal of a lease, the upward-only cushion is no more. At the start of a renewal lease, the rent would be the market rent (without any index-linking) at the time. So if the market rent then is lower, then the starting rent for the renewal lease would be rebased. In the prevailing market, rebased rents are common.
2.4 Granting a lease outside LTA54 does not overcome the Bill 2025 proposal. All tenancies that are a qualifying tenancy within the meaning of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1954 Part II are affected by the proposal. (Please note: trying to avoid a business tenancy by calling the document a licence does not make it one. With commercial property, the deciding factor, whether the occupier has exclusive possession, is the law, not the label the parties give the document.) For a lease to be outside LTA54, the parties agree that LTA54 sections 24-28 are excluded – those sections concern renewal rights – but, apart from that, the tenancy is governed by the LTA54.
3.0 Whether market rent only or a combination of market rent and index-linked with a minimum, or a rent geared to the tenant’s business turnover subject to a fixed minimum, and where the rent payable after the review is agreed or ascertained is not less than the rent immediately payable before, and even if the starting rent would be higher, the Bill 2025 is for all upward-only reviews to be unlawful. So the rent on review could drop below the rent at the start of the lease (or the average above.)
3.1 However, it is not quite as severe as all that.
(1) The proposal is not retrospective, so existing leases and renewal leases granted before Bill 2025 becomes law are unaffected.
(2) Leases to be granted after Bill 2025 becomes law are unaffected where an agreement for lease had been completed before that date.
(3) Bill 2025 is not intended to prevent an increase; it is to remove the floor for preventing any decrease. A turnover-based rent review is okay, provided there is no base rent. An index-linked review is okay, provided there is no collar. At this stage, it is uncertain whether a geared lease with a minimum base would be banned if the tenant is not occupying for the purpose of a business.
(4) Bill 2025 only applies where at the review date the rent could not be known or calculated in advance or some other mechanism would render it upward-only.
(5) Bill 2025 does not prevent the parties from agreeing fixed rents at each review when the lease was granted. Such rents would then be known at the review dates.
(6) Bill 2025 does not prevent a fixed rent for the full term of the lease.
(7) Bill 2025 does not prevent an option to extend the term on expiry of the lease at a pre-fixed rent.
(8) Bill 2005 does not require rent reviews to be at regular intervals, let alone at 3, 4 or 5 yearly intervals. Provided it is agreed when each increased rent is payable, a pre-fixed rent or series of pre-fixed rents is a good way to save on legal costs for grant of a new lease and avoid the cost of agreeing or ascertaining an open market rent review. This concept is nothing new and is particularly appealing for long leases to restaurants, nightclubs, hospitality businesses, and the leisure sector. Subject only to whether the landlord or the tenant shares your imagination, anything is possible, provided it does not fall foul of Bill 2025.
4.0 Before the 1970s oil crisis, leases commonly had pre-fixed increases at regular intervals. For example, a lease for term 21 years had reviews at 7 yearly intervals, each review an increase equivalent to 10% on the starting rent and each subsequent review. With the oil crisis came inflation in a big way. When I was at school during the 1960s, the talking point about the economy every month was the balance of payments. After the oil crisis, the talking point become the rate of inflation. More recently interest rates have been the talking point, but inflation is never far away.
4.1 There is no link between market rent and inflation. But because market rent is subject to the terms and conditions of the lease and comparable evidence includes, but is not limited to, comparison with the lease of the evidence compared to the lease in question, a formula methodology for calculating rent is easier than a valuation opinion of a rent. Typically, leases entitle a third party to decide an alternative index, but a badly worded lease can allow a third party to determine a market rent methodology even where the lease omits the basis for so doing. Even if tenants do not realise that, per case law, they can require a landlord to action a rent review or lose the right to do so, under Bill 2025 a tenant could initiate and force a review regardless.
4.2 Bill 2025 anti-avoidance renders any agreement void if it purports to require a tenant to make a payment for any difference in passing rent to get around the requirements of the proposal.
4.3 Bill 2025 extends to what is defined as a ‘put option’ which is where a tenant is required to enter into a new lease. Typically, where a lease contains an option to extend the term on expiry of the existing lease, such an option is voluntary, the tenant doesn’t have to. Bill 2025 envisages a scenario where the landlord can require the tenant to enter into a new lease.
5.0 How tenants react to the proposal will depend upon their bargaining power and importance as an investment covenant. How tenants with lease renewals underway or imminent will respond to proposals that include upward-only reviews remains to be seen. Whether landlords will pre-empt and opt for fixed increase reviews to be more certain of an increase than the risk of an open market review, I would recommend. The market, however, is dynamic, continually changing. What might work one day might not the next day, let alone years later. In most cases, recently, depending upon the whereabouts of the property, a pre-fixed rent increase would have been a better bet than an open market rent.
5.1 How to compare a lease whose reviews are upward or downward with a lease whose reviews are upward only is the same as existing – a benefit to the tenant that arguably justifies a higher rent. But if as and when, then an upward-only review would be viewed as a disadvantage.
6.0 As Bill 2025 travels through Parliament and commentators suggest legitimate ways to circumvent the proposal and as anything else comes to mind, I shall update my analysis.
July 2025. I have just found out that a well-known firm of surveyors has re-hired someone whose reputation is awful. I doubt I am the only one who has been on the receiving end of his nastiness and, so I am told, not the only one who has expressed concern about the re-hiring.
When a surveyor represents a retailer, the surveyor is an ambassador for that retailer. Anything the surveyor says and does represents that retailer. It is the retailer’s decision to instruct and the firm’s duty of care to ensure that the surveyor dealing with the matter complements the retailer’s relationship with its customers.
Multiple retailers might like to imagine that they can afford to lose customers, in the mass market there are sure to be enough new customers to make up the difference. But retailing is fiercely competitive, and social media influential. If a customer has been badly treated or let down, it won’t take long for hundreds possibly thousands of other customers to get to hear about it.
In business, a difference exists between customers and ‘profitable’ customers. A profitable customer is someone who, regardless of the competition and competitors, is loyal to the particular retailer. For example, when John Lewis Partnership went wrong in changing its credit card provider to New Day, it lost hundreds of profitable customers. In my case, for example, instead of JLP being the first port of call for most purchases, it lost 50 years of loyalty.
For a rent review, the parties’ surveyors do not start off by exchanging a list of retailers with whom they are regular customers; that’s personal and irrelevant. But it becomes relevant if something happens during negotiations to make one think do I really want to continue spending money with this retailer if its surveyor is the sort of person the retailer thinks a suitable ambassador. Currently, for example, an in-house surveyor for a group company of the same retailer as the nasty experience 20 years ago has become so aggressive that I am relieved not to have spent any money with the retailer since. Possibly, the surveyor years ago did not think for one moment there was anything I could have done about it. Wrong. I wrote in my newsletter and on my website and by the time the retailer requested enough, thousands of people, including directors and owners of multiple retailers, would have read about it.
The awful situation arose as a result of the surveyor’s emphatic nil increase which, because I disagreed, sparked his tantrum. On referral, an increase. The aggression above because of my refusal to negotiate by an in-house surveyor’s rules.
Fortunately, such experiences are rare. Nowadays, if anything like that were to happen then, as well as writing on my newsletter website and on LinkedIn, I’d report the surveyor to the RICS for breach of core principles. I’d also write to the retailer’s CEO and suggest something be done urgently to stop it happening again.
Jul 2025 – For continuing professional development, Ii was reading about an Act of June 1657 “Annoyance by Buildings.; Fines for Houses built on new Foundations, within ten miles of the Walls of London, since the 25 of March, 1620” (for the preventing the multiplicity of Buildings in and about the Suburbs of London, and within ten miles of the same), becoming interested in the term “rack rent”.
I’d always assumed “rack rent” meant the new full open market rent, but not so. Rather, not the only meaning. According to Wikipedia, “historically, rack-rent has often been a term of protest used to denote an unjustly excessive rent (the word “rack” evoking the medieval torture device), usually one paid by a tenant farmer. The two conceptions… – the other the full rent of a property, including both land and improvements as if subject to an immediate open-market rental review – …of rack-rent both apply when excessive rent is obtained by threat of eviction resulting in uncompensated dispossession of improvements the tenant himself has made. I.e., by charging rack-rent, the landowner unjustly uses his power over the land to effectively confiscate wages, in addition to merely charging the tenant interest and depreciation on the capital improvements which the landlord himself has made to the land.”
I know the origin of “open market rent” which, despite case law deciding “open” is superfluous, might not be. It originates from the bygone era when markets were not open to all.
The history of fairs and markets is fascinating, at least I find it so, particularly for the origin of market towns, the grant of Royal charters, and weights and measures. Generally, it is from market towns that bricks-and-mortar physical shops evolved. Fairs were often for employment, when at harvest time jobseekers would offer their services and afterwards some entertainment. The “mop” in mop fairs was a tassel which successful applicants wore on their head to signify having been offered a job.
Some 30 years ago when. in spare time, I chaired the Ledbury Carnival Committee, I fell out with the fair’s representative over a difference in opinion where I wanted the fair sited and his assertion it had to be in the high street. Searching for another fair, I discovered that under the code of conduct of the Showmans’ Guild, another fair couldn’t come unless the existing fair had resigned. Instead of the fair paying us the usual fee, we hired a children’s roundabout and discovered just how profitable fairground attractions are. The upshot of the fair refusal was that its sub-tenant stallholders were furious with the representative because Ledbury was, apparently, one of the most profitable towns in the region. Even since, the fair has done as told! The blueprint I introduced for that Carnival has also been used ever since by successive committees.
Jul 2025 – Creepy? When you stop to think about it, the RICS is like an episode of Dr Who where an alien beast has a hold over humans that have to do its bidding.
Over 150 years ago, a few surveyors got together to decide their standards were superior to everyone else at the time so to atttract more work that was going elsewhere they set out to compete in what is arguably the only way to undermine the loyalty that would’ve existed between the lesser surveyors and their clients.
Fast forward to now and what has evolved is an organism whose tentacles have such a grip on the property market that the freedom of landlords and tenants to enter into contracts which, provided not illegal or subject to overriding legislation, is curtailed because any chartered surveyor advising must do the utmost to convince the client that what the RICS wants the RICS gets.
Take for example the latest incarnation: an updated PS for service charges in commercial property leases. Unlike residential service charges that are regulated, commercial property service charges are not. A landlord can impose whatever it likes and if a tenant doesn’t like it then tough. Unfair bad bargain agreements are rife in the commercial property market. To redress the balance, this non statutory body imposes its will on landlords by introducing to tenants a gamut of ideas that might not otherwise have been considered in a quest for standardisation regardless. In the same way the European Union is an experiment in socialism that can only work if people give up their national identity, otherwise seemingly intelligent people enlist to become brainwashed clones.
Not content with interfering in the drafting of leases, private agreements between landlords and tenants, the RICS has a monopoly on rents. Its members get to decide what rent landlords should have to accept regardless of the commercial purpose of a rent review which is to keep pace with the changing value of money. So even though surveyors do not make the market but merely interpret it for the benefit for client, a gap often exists between what the open market would pay and what the third party decides. Because unless there is evidence of what the open market would pay, which often there isn’t, the third party errs on the side of caution.
The snag with over-stepping the mark is that there comes a point when market players say enough is enough. To overcome the hassle and cost of renewing a lease, increasingly landlords want the lease outside LTA54. Next in line for the chop is the rent review which is rapidly becoming indexed linked or formulaic.
Give it another 10-20 years or so and the RICS grip will have been loosened; landlords and tenants free to return to their own devices, their advisers “unqualified” academically, instead more than enough experience.
Jun 2025 – Complain… is not something I do very often. Mostly, there’s nothing much to complain about. Specialising in rent review enables considering holistically, not only from the client’s perspective. There are at least two sides to a story. So when I complain occasionally, I always include some suggestions for what can be done to ensure the situation does not reoccur.
I’d like to think my approach is appreciated by the recipient, usually the CEO of the company. I rarely contact customer services. Customer services is a “barrier” whose function is to shield the CEO from getting involved with the public face of the organisation or business. Contacting the CEO direct is much more likely to elicit a constructive response than wasting time dealing with lower levels of pay grades. Long ago, whilst acting for a local trader tenant of a small unit on an upper floor of Lakeside Shopping Centre, I wrote to the landlord’s figurehead director, Baroness x, explained the position and asked for her help. Soon after, instructions from the top unblocked the resistance I had encountered in dealing with the surveyors.
I wish I could say the same of the RICS. Finding the contact details for the President and anyone on the presidential team is difficult. You’d think, at least I would, that an organisation that wants to be regarded as a “centre for excellence” would be outfacing and whose top people would respond to messages either personally or through a personal assistant. Perhaps the scandal in 2019 – involving allegations of suppressed financial reports, mismanagement of funds, a power struggle between senior executives and non-executive directors, which led to Alison Levitt KC (whom the RICS had appointed to carry out a review) in her conclusion that the RICS executive “hid behind the governance structure when it was convenient, but circumvented it for much of the rest of the time” – is continuing?
I should think it very difficult for anyone helping to run a membership organisation whose role in the property market is not statutory. and whose influence is limited to requiring its members to spread the word, to be as customer-friendly as a commercial business.
In most large organisations, change is at a snail’s pace. A rowing boat can turn on a sixpence, a big ship turning circle can be half-a-mile. So as an adviser to landlords and tenants whose interests the RICS wants to serve, despite not having been asked, perhaps I am expecting too much, or too soon, that it would take any notice of anything glaringly obvious that would help improve standards.
Jun 2025 – I am, so much so that since the start of the year I’ve worn 4 layers of clothing on my upper body, including one thermal layer. Most people (including my wife) think I’m mad. Perhaps.
A few years ago, we replaced all the original double glazing with triple glazing acoustic one-way glass – unusual in a private house. Part of the reason was to minimise the sound of our dog barking to the outside world. Unlike dogs that win competitions so that their owners can proudly display cups on the mantlepiece, our dog has a collection of complaint letters from the council and anonymous letters from nearby residents. Considering she’s only doing her job by barking, I thought it was wrong she should be told off – even if it was at 3am. As a gesture of goodwill to the people opposite that no longer talk to us following that incident, now whenever they look out of their windows toward the front of our house, all they can see is a reflection of them themselves. (Time-saving tip: do not talk to your neighbours!)
Something I didn’t allow for but which has saved on heating bills is that the interior temperature is consistent. During the heatwave, the indoor temperature is cool and pleasant, with no sense of how hot it is outside. So on Friday last, when I went outside for longer than the usual 20 seconds or so daily walk to the wheelie bin and back, it fascinated me how many people I saw not wearing as many clothes as usual.
Body temperature in the range 97 to 99 F can vary with age, activity level, time of day, and other individual factors. In my opinion, the reason so-called normal people feel hot in hot weather is food and drink. Sweat is the body’s way of cooling when we are dehydrated. Top-up with water? A good way to overheat the body permanently is to drink coffee, tea, alcohol, eat chocolate, crisps, ice-cream, added sugar. Any food and drink, typical of the Western high acidity diet, that causes the body to work harder to maintain the pH alkaline-acid balance takes its toll on our innards. Removing clothes to cool down is not the answer if the cause of feeling hot is also not addressed.
Scientifically proven? No idea. I’m a fan of science, up to a point. When you rely on science, remember scientists rely on funding, often provided by the same companies whose products are under scrutiny. For me, it’s what makes sense. A wholefood organic vegetarian for more than 40 years, for the past few years more alkaline and since last year, thanks to Chris van Tulleken, no ultra-high processed foods, I’m not expecting anyone to follow my example: what you eat and drink is your choice. All I would say is that the cumulative effect of a high acidity food and drink regime over the long term is a cause of mental stress, aches and pains and a host of ailments that attack your immune system until one day your bodily systems have to choose between maintaining your longevity naturally and protecting you along the way from self-inflicted harm.
Jun 2025 – On referral, win most, lose a few; fair enough when the third party is someone who knows what he/she is talking about. But it irks when someone doesn’t.
One such today. For no apparent reason, the RICS appointment of an IE was, according to the surveyor’s website, an arbitrator and mediator. As if to make a point, after accepting the appointment, when the parties had no choice and couldn’t object, the person sent the parties a CV which would be impressive for an arbitrator. Why the person accepted the appointment is beyond me.
Not only did the person suggest costs could be decided when the lease clearly states each party is to pay 50%, but also the valuation has been based on the RICS valuation standards definition of market rent even though anyone experienced of rent review for a commercial property knows that the definition of market rent depends upon the lease in question. And as for the costs, it wouldn’t surprise me, inflated through lack of involvement in the market. That and including irrelevant paragraphs in the determination as if to pad and, albeit not obliged to give reasons, the reasons given did not include the most important why the determination. Charging £360 an hour to merely repeat what the parties have said is a rip-off.
In 2010 and again in 2015, the RICS DRS panel service agreement for commercial rent Independent Experts required regular assessment ordinarily at 5 yearly intervals unless triggered, among other things, by adverse feedback or lack of regular market involvement in stated areas of expertise. IEs had to update the DRS on their market involvement every 2.5 years with details of experience. For skills, the expert had to be recognised in the marketplace as actively involved.
In 2024, the criteria for a RICS DRS panel appointment as an IE is seemingly more flexible, allowing presumably for the shortage of IEs with particular skills, experience, and/or geographical areas. The property in question is in London, where I would think no shortage of IEs with experience of shop lettings, but while I’d never heard of this person, which in itself doesn’t matter because at least when checking up, the credentials do not give me cause for concern.
In an era of transparency and accountability, I consider the RICS, with its virtual monopoly of third-party appointment for rent disputes, should re-think. An IE should be required to give reasons for a determination by default, unless both parties object. Costs should be limited to a percentage of the passing rent on a sliding scale commensurate with the. rent. An IE should only be appointed if actively involved with leasing transactions in the same market as the type of property in question.
I am going to do something I’ve never done before, and that is to make a formal complaint to the President of the RICS and the RICS DRS that this person should never be appointed as an IE again. In my opinion, the RICS DRS has made a terrible mistake in allowing this person to be an IE. The sooner nipped in the bud, the better.
Jun 2025 – Hardly a week goes by when yet another report is published on some aspect of the market, trends, and so on.
Sometimes a client will provide me with a report published by a trade organisation, or a survey of comments by local businesses, and such like, regarding the state of the market at the time. Another source is research reports produced by leading commercial property agents.
Unlike the client who in most cases has only read what is relevant to the client’s needs, I also read the report author’s methodology.
In the same/similar way that advertisers say that 8 out 10 people prefer ‘x’ which might sound impressive – until the claim is investigated and finds that just 75 people were asked for their opinion – such reports are normally generalisations and of no assistance whatsoever for the rent review. One might think that an inexperienced party can be forgiven for thinking otherwise, but surveyors are also ‘guilty’ and on referral will pad reports with pages of irrelevancies in the hope presumably of convincing the third party that what might be happening in the market generally should apply to a particular property in a particular town.
In my opinion, such generalisation is in the same league as reasoning, as inexperienced parties do, a direct link between Rateable Value and their rent. It doesn’t help that the VOA, in explaining how the RV has been arrived at, says the market rent of the premises (and in many instances the first zone depth 6.1m (20 ft) when actually in some places it is 4.572m (15′) or 9.144m (30′). Not only is the assumption for rating valuation different from rent review, but also per R v Paddington Valuation Officer and Another Ex parte Peachey Property Corporation Ltd 1965 there is no correlation between Rateable Value and actual rent.
Throwing enough mud at the wall in the hope that some of it will stick adds unnecessarily to third-party costs on rent review. Especially if the third party has to travel miles away to inspect the property merely to confirm first thought. In my opinion, surveyors generally overcharge for reports/submissions to third parties as is, without adding to the costs to justify their fees.
Jun 2025 – In Darwall and another v Dartmoor National park authority 2025, a ruling by the Supreme Court about the public’s right to camp overnight on Dartmoor is interesting comment about statutory interpretation, following on from Pepper (Inspector of Taxes) v Hart 1992.
The normal principles of statutory interpretation are to ascertain the meaning of the words used in a statute in the light of their context and the purpose of the statutory provision. In Pepper, the House of Lords established that the courts can, in certain circumstances, consider statements made in Parliament (specifically, in Hansard, the official record of parliamentary debates) when interpreting ambiguous or obscure legislation.
The principal legislation for lease renewals is the Landlord and Tenant Act 1954 Part II (as amended). Subsequent amendments are the Law of Property Act 1969 [interim rent]; Landlord and Tenant (Covenants) Act 1995 [privity of contract], Regulatory Reform (Business Tenancies) (England and Wales) Order 2003 [s24-28 exclusion / outside the Act]; Small Business Enterprise and Employment Act 2015 [home business] . As far as I am aware, there hasn’t been any need for statutory interpretation of the Acts and Order, but a considerable body of case law exists for interpretation arising out of the application of the legislation on qualifying tenancy expiry and renewal.
Currently, the Law Commision is consulting on reform of the LTA54 Part II. To date, it is likely that the Act’s model of secuty for qualifying tenancies will be unchanged. Also that the existing 6 month tenancy exclusion from the Act may be extended to about 2 years.
Jun 2025 – In July 2003, Allsop auction, Lot 34, Mr X bought a shop investment 52/54 High Street, Hucknall, Nottinghamshire. An attractive prominent building let to Boots at £28,250 pa, he paid £610,000. The seller, Golfrate, had served notice for the March 2003 review proposing £43,000 pax.
Something I advise landlords when buying at auction is to ask “who’s selling, and why?” Inexperience doesn’t think the answers matter, so carry on regardless. But those of us who know what we’re talking about, know there’s a catch when the seller is an experienced professional landlord. To the question, “what’s the catch?” the answer is “you are.” Anyhow, I wasn’t consulted by Mr X beforehand, so what transpired was his own fault.
The wording for the rent review was unclear and ambiguous. Boots were adamant an upward/downward review. Mr X, presented with Boots’s offer of £20,000 pax and refund the overpayment, instructed his solicitors to advise. The solicitors recommended my services. To avoid litigation and costs, Boots Calderbanked at £22,500 pax. To cut a long story, I persuaded Boots to agree no reduction in the rent, so nil increase. Mr X refused to sign the Memorandum. Also, he did not pay my fee so I issued proceedings in the small claims court. To my suprise, Mr X defended the claim. We agreed to go to mediation but the court couldn’t find a mediator. I needed to amend the claim. I contacted the court office and was told to write a letter. The court rejected my letter, saying it wasn’t an application, so reluctantly I paid some more costs for the application. After that nothing; the court had mislaid the papers. I gave up. Fortunately, the number of bad debts I have endured over the years are very few.
In February 2024, Lot 39, Allsop again auctioned the freehold. In April 2023, Boots had renewed for 5 years at £24,500 pa (lower than before), with TB in 2026. The reported sale price was £290,000. In June 2025, Allsop auction again, Lot 58, the reported sale price £322,000.
In the 21 years Mr X owned the freehold, the rent, excluding costs and any other non-recoverable expenses, had just about covered the purchase price. Getting out for £290,000 before costs a bonus. Why the property was resold this month I can only guess at something to do with Boots break right next year.
In July 2003, Allsop and the seller both warned prospective investors to think twice about bidding. By clearly stating at the top of the auction catalogue lot page “On Instructions of Golfrate”. That’s the thing about the inexperienced, they don’t understand the significance.