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England and Wales property law update: Law Commission reforms, telecoms Code rulings, lease v licence, HMLR changes, easements and covenants, and Bill to ban upwards-only rent reviews

Published on: 04 September 2025

Published by a LexisNexis Property expert
Legal News
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Article summary

In this issue:

  • Key developments and horizon scanning
  • Leasing property
  • Transferring property
  • Easements, rights and covenants
  • LexTalk®Property: a Lexis®Nexis community
  • Additional property updates this week
  • Daily and weekly news alerts
  • Trackers
  • New Q&A
  • Key developments and horizon scanning

Law Commission’s 14th programme of reform

On 4 September 2025, the Law Commission unveiled its 14th Programme of Law reform. The newly announced workstreams cover agricultural tenancies, commercial leasehold, deeds, management of housing estates and ownerless land.

New projects

The Law Commission already has a project examining the right to renew business tenancies under Part 2 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1954. The fresh commercial leasehold initiative will contain two sub-projects: issues arising under the Landlord and Tenant (Covenants) Act 1995, and rights of first refusal under the Landlord and Tenant Act 1987, so far as the law applies to commercial premises. The latter is a scoping exercise to identify which problems might be addressed by reform, with an emphasis on the legal framework for maintaining, repairing and upgrading leased commercial buildings, including rules on dilapidations, service charges, and the interaction between environmental frameworks and commercial leasehold law...

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Date [ date ] Parties [ name of Landlord ] [ of OR incorporated in England and Wales (company registration number [ number ]) with its registered office at ] [ address ] (Landlord) [ name of Tenant ] [ of OR incorporated in England and Wales (company registration number [ number ]) with its registered office at ] [ address ] (Tenant) [ [ name of Guarantor ] [ of OR incorporated in England and Wales (company registration number [ number ]) with its registered office at ] [ address ] (Guarantor) ] [ [ name of Mortgagee ] [ of OR incorporated in England and Wales (company registration number [ number ]) with its registered office at ] [ address ] (Mortgagee) ] Definitions Within this Deed, the terms below shall be interpreted as follows: [ Annual Rent • the annual sum reserved under the Lease; ] [ Insurance Rent • the Tenant’s share of the Landlord’s costs of insuring the Property (as set out in the Lease); ] Lease • the lease of the Property dated [ date ], entered into between (1) [ the Landlord OR [ name ...

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