Upwards only rent review ban – health warning for deals you are doing now

This affects relevant transactions on or after 17 March 2026.

The English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill is currently going through Parliament (at Report stage in the House of Lords) and part of the Bill will ban upwards only rent reviews (UORRs) in leases of commercial property in England and Wales. See here and here for our previous articles on the Bill.

Until now, the ban provisions were not likely to be retrospective. Consequently, rent reviews in leases granted before the ban comes into force would not be caught by the ban. However, a proposed amendment (still to be debated in the Lords but likely to go through as it is a Government amendment) will extend the ban to certain transactions entered into before the legislation is passed (assuming the legislation is then passed in its current form).

The main scenarios potentially caught are a day-one UORR contained in an option to renew with an existing tenant, or UORRs in the lease granted pursuant to such option agreement. This is whether: 

• the option agreement has been included in the original lease itself or is standalone; or
• it is granted at the same time as the original lease or subsequently.

The key new retrospective impact is that once the Bill is passed, this day-one UORR and the UORRs in the lease granted pursuant to such option agreement will be caught by the ban (and will become upwards or downwards) if the option was entered into on or after 17 March 2026, even though the Bill will not have been in force at that time.

This new retrospective impact affects not only options, but other arrangements entered into on or after 17 March 2026 where the tenant under the existing tenancy can require the landlord or another person to grant a new tenancy or can be required by the landlord or another person to take a new tenancy. 

Timing is not known on when the upwards only rent review ban will come into force.