Amendment of the Scottish Pubs Code Regulations 2024

3.—(1) The Scottish Pubs Code Regulations 2024(1) are amended in accordance with paragraphs (2) to (9).

(2) For regulation 1 (citation and commencement) substitute—

Citation and commencement

1.—(1) These Regulations may be cited as the Scottish Pubs Code Regulations 2024.

(2)  The following Parts of these Regulations come into force on 30 March 2025—

(a)Part 1 (general),

(b)Part 2 (information and advice to prospective tied-pub tenants),

(c)Part 5 (guest beer agreements),

(d)Part 6 (miscellaneous).

(3) The following Parts of these Regulations come into force on 30 June 2025—

(a)Part 3 (rent assessment and rent review),

(b)Part 4 (market rent only leases).”.

(3) In regulation 2(1) (interpretation), after the definition of “request date” insert—

““Schedule of Condition” means a document which accurately records the condition of the tied pub to be let,”.

(4) In regulation 10(1) (information to be provided to prospective tenants)—

(a)for sub-paragraph (c) substitute—

“(c)a Schedule of Condition, and”,

(b)in sub-paragraph (d)(v) for “any publicly available reports” substitute “at least one publicly available report”.

(5) After regulation 11 (prospective tenants to prepare a business plan) insert—

Schedule of condition

11A.  Before entering into a new lease, a pub-owning business must take the Schedule of Condition into account—

(a)during an assessment of any maintenance or repairs in respect of the premises, and

(b)before any obligations or liabilities in respect of the condition of the premises are agreed between the pub-owning business and the tied pub tenant.”.

(6) In regulation 15(2) (requirement to offer an MRO lease)—

(a)omit sub-paragraph (b),

(b)for sub-paragraph (d) substitute—

“(d)the tenant or the pub-owning business has served a notice to bring the lease to an end and the remaining term of the tenant’s lease is three months or less, or”.

(7) After regulation 15 (requirement to offer an MRO lease) insert—

Requirement to offer an MRO lease: further provision where lease period is longer than one year

15A.—(1) A pub-owning business need not offer an MRO lease as required by regulation 15(1) where the term of the tenant’s lease is for a period longer than one year and less than one half of the term of the lease has passed at the date on which the tenant requests an MRO lease, except where paragraph (2) applies.

(2) This paragraph applies where a tenant requests an MRO lease during the period of 6 months immediately preceding the date on which one half of the term of the lease has passed (but see regulation 16(3A)).”.

(8) After regulation 16(3) (process for offering an MRO lease) insert—

“(3A) Where a tied-pub tenant has requested an MRO lease from a pub-owning business in the period of 6 months immediately preceding the date on which one half of the term of the lease of over one year has passed in accordance with regulation 15A(2), the pub-owning business may make an offer of an MRO lease which provides that the deed of variation, or new lease where the tenant consents to a new lease being offered, does not come into force until the date on which one half of the term of the lease has passed.”.

(9) In regulation 17 (assessing the market rent of an MRO lease)—

(a)after paragraph (7) insert—

“(7A) The tied-pub tenant or pub-owning business may refer the market rent determination made by the rent assessor to the adjudicator if there is an obvious error in the rent determination.

(7B) A referral to the adjudicator under paragraph (7A) must be made within a period of 14 days beginning on the date on which the rent assessor notifies the parties in writing of the market rent under paragraph (7).

(7C) Where the adjudicator, or another person appointed by the adjudicator, considers there to be an obvious error in the market rent determination, the adjudicator, or the person appointed by the adjudicator, may correct that error by notifying the parties in writing of the corrected market rent.”,

(b)in paragraph (8), after “paragraph (7)” insert “or, if referred to the adjudicator under paragraph (7A), within 4 weeks of the date on which the adjudicator, or a person appointed by the adjudicator, determines the rent under paragraph (7C)”,

(c)in paragraph (9), after “the rent assessor” insert “or, if there is a referral under paragraph (7A), by the adjudicator or a person appointed by the adjudicator,”.