Rent review calculation

[Hta]

My rent is up for renewal. The landlord’s calculation is this…
Under the terms of your lease dated 26th June 2020 there is a rent review due under the lease dated 20th April 2023. The calculation for the rent review is based on CPI using a base rent of £15,000 and the increase in the CPI Index between February 2020 and February 2023. According to the ONS the February 2023 figure was 127.9 and the February 2020 figure is 108.6 giving an increase of 1.1777. Multiplying that by the current rent of £15,000 per annum equates to a new rent of £17,665.75.

The lease states…
Annual Rent: as follows:
(a) for the period from and including the Rent Commencement Date to and including 20 April 2021 the sum of £6,000 per annum;
(b) for the period from and including 21 April 2021 to and including 20 April 2022 the sum of £12,500 per annum;
(c) for the period from and including 21 April 2022 to and including 20 April 2023 the sum of £15,000 per annum and then as revised pursuant to this lease;
Base CPI Month: [___________________].
Base Rent: rent of £15,000 per annum

The indexed rent for a Review Date shall be determined by multiplying the Base Rent by the All Items index value of the RPI for the month two months before the month in which that Review Date falls, then dividing the product by the All Items index value of the CPI for the Base CPI Month.

Does £17665.75 look about right?

 

[pentel]

Base CPI Month: [___________________].

Is this part of the lease not filled in?

 

[Hta]

Is this part of the lease not filled in?

Nope.

 

[Newchodge]

Nope.

That's awkward!

 

[IanSuth]

is there anything in the definitions at the beginning of the contract saying about dates are taken to be the date of signing unless specified differently in the contract.

Or any kind of hint of how to deal with the omission of an effective date - or you could just as easily argue it means average cpi index change for the last 2 months should be used as the multiplier

I think given the size of the disparity between those 2 approaches in the absence of something in the contract you are going to be seeing an expert

 

[pentel]

It could reasonably argued that the base CPI month should be the same month as the first month that the base rent first applied.

 

[Newchodge]

It could reasonably argued that the base CPI month should be the same month as the first month that the base rent first applied.

I agree - I would argue it should be February 2022, 2 months before the last date the rent was changed.

 

[Hta]

There’s nothing else in the lease relating to the rent. I’m surprised this was missed by my solicitor.
What do various dates do to the calculation?
Is the landlord’s agent trying it on by increasing the rent from £15k to almost £18k?
Is the clause trying to say that this year it should be £15k plus inflation?

 

[Scott DLE]

Seems like there is a lot of commercial landlords at it. My rent has increased by 5% year on year. But the service charge was quite high originally and nothing in the lease to say how much that would increase by. They bumped it up by 20% in April. It’s about an extra grand a year now.