How to Prepare a Lease Renewal Court Bundle Yourself: A Practical Guide

Last updated: 7 May 2026

Quick answer

A lease renewal under Part II of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1954 is a civil claim, usually issued in the County Court under CPR Part 56, and the bundle you put before the judge has to do real work. It must contain the original lease, the section 25 or section 26 notice that started the clock, any counter-notice, the statements of case, witness statements in PD32 form, expert valuation evidence on rent and lease terms, and the documentary record of comparable lettings and condition. Pagination is consecutive Arabic across the whole bundle, with a hyperlinked index. The bundle is your map of the dispute — well organised, it lets the judge find the lease clause, the notice, and the comparable in seconds. This guide walks you through what goes in, why, and where the procedural traps tend to lie.

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Why the 1954 Act sits at the centre of everything

If you are a business tenant of premises occupied for the purposes of a business, the Landlord and Tenant Act 1954 Part II almost certainly applies to you. Section 23 sets the test: a tenancy of premises occupied by the tenant for the purposes of a business carried on by them. Once you are in, section 24 gives you continuation: the tenancy does not simply end on the contractual term date. It rolls on until terminated by one of the statutory routes.

Those routes are narrow and they matter. A landlord ends a 1954 Act tenancy by serving a section 25 notice. A tenant who wants a new lease serves a section 26 request. A tenant who wants out serves a section 27 notice. Termination by agreement under section 28 is also possible. Every renewal claim — opposed or unopposed — starts with one of these notices, so your bundle starts there too.

The court's job in an unopposed renewal under section 29 is to grant a new tenancy. The disputes are about its terms: the duration (section 33), the rent (section 34), and the other terms (section 35). If you understand which sub-section governs which dispute, you will know which evidence belongs where in the bundle. That is the spine of everything that follows.

This guide is not legal advice. The 1954 Act is a written language with its own grammar, and most explorers benefit from at least one conversation with a solicitor or surveyor before issuing. What this guide can do is show you the lay of the land so you arrive at that conversation with the right questions.

The procedural route — Part 56 and the County Court

Claims under the 1954 Act are governed by CPR Part 56 and Practice Direction 56. Most unopposed renewals are issued in the County Court at Central London (or the County Court hearing centre for the district in which the property lies). High-value cases — broadly, where the rent or capital sums in dispute justify it — can be issued in the Chancery Division of the High Court, but unopposed renewals over modest premises rarely go that way.

The claim is brought using a Part 8 claim form, supported by an acknowledgment of service from the defendant. PD 56 sets out the matters the claim form must address: the property, the current tenancy, the notices served, the grounds (if any) of opposition, and the proposed terms of the new tenancy. The defendant's acknowledgment must answer those propositions and put forward its own.

There is no automatic disclosure stage in a Part 8 claim, but in practice the court will give directions for witness evidence and expert evidence, and a trial window. Read the order carefully when it lands — your filing deadlines for evidence, expert reports, and the bundle itself will be on the face of it. Treat that order as the master timetable for your preparation.

What goes in the bundle — the seven things the judge needs

Strip it back to essentials. A renewal court needs seven things in front of it: (1) the lease being renewed, (2) the notice that started the renewal, (3) any counter-notice or response, (4) the pleadings setting out what is in dispute, (5) the witness evidence on factual matters such as use and occupation, (6) the expert evidence on rent and other commercial terms, and (7) the documentary record — comparable lettings, photographs, plans.

Every page of the bundle should justify itself against that list. If a document does not help the judge decide a real issue under sections 33, 34, or 35, it does not belong. Bundles bloat when parties include licences to assign, side letters, and historic correspondence on the assumption that more is safer. It is not. A judge who has to wade through a hundred irrelevant pages is a judge who is not concentrating on your comparable evidence.

The lease itself usually goes near the front, behind the pleadings. Mark up the rent review clause, the user clause, the alienation clause, the repair covenants, and any break clause. These are the provisions the judge will keep returning to. If there is a schedule of condition, include it — the state of the premises at the start of the term often surfaces in arguments about repair obligations in the new lease.

Witness statements — the factual spine

Witness statements in the County Court must comply with Practice Direction 32. That means: drafted in the witness's own words, in the first person, on numbered pages, with a statement of truth in the prescribed wording. Exhibits are sequentially numbered and labelled with the witness's initials.

For an unopposed renewal, the tenant's witness statement typically covers occupation and use of the premises, the conduct of the business, any improvements carried out, and the commercial relationship with the landlord. Keep it factual. If you have run the business since 2017, say so and exhibit accounts or VAT registration. If you have invested in fit-out, exhibit invoices and photographs.

Where the renewal is opposed under section 30(1) — grounds (a) to (g), covering disrepair, persistent rent arrears, breach, suitable alternative accommodation, uneconomic sub-letting, demolition or reconstruction, and the landlord's own intended occupation — the witness evidence becomes central. The landlord must prove its ground. Ground (f) (demolition) and ground (g) (own occupation) in particular turn on intention at the date of the hearing, and the Supreme Court's decision in S Franses Ltd v Cavendish Hotel [2018] UKSC 62 is now the leading authority on the firmness required. If your case is opposed, this guide will not be enough on its own.

For an unopposed claim, the witness evidence is shorter and the heavy lifting is done by the experts.

Expert evidence — the surveyors

The valuation of the new rent under section 34 is a question for a surveyor, not a judge sitting alone, and not a litigant in person armed with online comparables. The court will normally direct expert evidence — sometimes from a single joint expert, more often from one expert each — under CPR Part 35.

The expert's report has to comply with PD35. That means a statement of duty to the court, the substance of instructions, the methodology, the comparables relied on with full source data, and the expert's opinion expressed with reasons. A surveyor's report on a high street shop in a market town might run to forty pages with thirty pages of comparable schedules attached. That is normal.

If there are two experts, expect the court to direct a joint statement under CPR 35.12 — a meeting of experts to identify points of agreement and disagreement, with reasons. The joint statement is one of the most important documents in the bundle. Judges read it first and then work backwards into the individual reports.

A practical point on instructing experts: do it early. A surveyor with two weeks before trial cannot do a thorough job on comparables. A surveyor with three months can.

Bundle structure — the five-part convention

There is no single mandatory format for a 1954 Act renewal bundle outside the Family jurisdiction's Practice Direction 27A regime, but the working convention in the County Court and Chancery Division is a five-part structure:

Part 1 — Statements of case. Claim form, particulars (or the Part 8 evidence), defence, any reply.

Part 2 — Orders and directions. The procedural order(s), any case management directions, any consent orders.

Part 3 — Witness statements. Each statement followed by its exhibits, with a clear divider page.

Part 4 — Expert reports. Each report followed by its appendices. The joint statement, if there is one, sits between the reports or at the front of Part 4.

Part 5 — Documentary evidence. The lease, notices, counter-notices, comparable schedules, photographs, plans.

Within each part, documents go in chronological order unless logic dictates otherwise. The lease at the start of Part 5 is the obvious exception — it is the foundation document and the judge will want it to hand.

Consider a separate authorities bundle if you are relying on more than three or four cases. The advocacy bundle and the evidence bundle are different beasts.

Pagination, indexing, and the small things that matter

Pagination is consecutive Arabic across the whole bundle. Page 1 is the first page of the index; the last page is the last page of Part 5. Do not paginate per part — judges will hate you for it, and they will tell you so during the hearing.

The index sits at the front. Each entry shows: document description, date, and page number. If the bundle is electronic — and most are now — the index entries should be hyperlinked to the relevant page. Hyperlinks save the judge from scrolling. They also tell the judge that the litigant in person preparing the bundle has thought about how the bundle will actually be used.

Use clear divider pages between parts. Use a sans-serif body font and a font size that survives photocopying — minimum 11 point. Print on one side. Bind in a way that lets the bundle lie flat. None of this is glamorous. All of it is noticed.

Filing deadlines and shifting hearing dates

Court timetables move. Hearings get vacated, refixed, listed and relisted. Build your preparation backwards from the trial date with two weeks of slack at the end. The bundle is usually filed seven to fourteen days before the hearing — check the order — but you want it ready to go a week earlier than that.

If a deadline is going to slip, apply for an extension before it expires. A consent application with the other side's agreement is straightforward. An application after the deadline has passed is a relief from sanctions application under CPR 3.9, and the Denton test applies. That is a different and harder conversation.

If the hearing date moves, recheck every dependent deadline in the order. Expert reports often have to be exchanged by reference to the trial date. If trial moves, exchange usually moves with it — but only if the order says so. Otherwise the original deadlines stand and you may need a new direction.

When PACT is the better forum

The Professional Arbitration on Court Terms scheme — PACT — is a joint initiative of the RICS and the Law Society. It allows the parties to a 1954 Act renewal to take the dispute out of court and refer it to a surveyor or solicitor sitting as arbitrator or independent expert.

PACT works well where the dispute is purely about the terms of the new tenancy (rent, length, repair) and there is no opposition under section 30. It is faster than court, cheaper than court, and the decision-maker has property expertise the court may not. The downside is that you pay the arbitrator's fees as well as your own costs, and there are limits on appeal.

If you are a litigant in person and the dispute is genuinely just about the rent, PACT deserves serious thought before you commit to a court hearing. Both parties have to agree to it. Once you are in, the court proceedings are stayed.

Section 32 and the landlord's election on part

Section 32 of the 1954 Act gives a landlord, in certain circumstances, the right to elect that the new tenancy be of the whole of the property comprised in the current tenancy where the tenant has been occupying only part. It also allows, where the landlord has opposed under ground (f) on the basis of demolition or reconstruction of part, certain consequences for the geometry of the new lease.

This matters in mixed-use buildings where the tenant occupies a ground-floor shop but the lease is of the shop and ancillary basement storage that has fallen out of use. If the landlord elects under section 32 that the new tenancy be of the whole, the rent under section 34 will be valued on the whole, not the part the tenant actually uses. That can shift the negotiation significantly.

Bundle-wise: include the original lease plan, any plan attached to the section 25 notice, and any subsequent floor plans showing actual use. The geography of the holding becomes evidence.

Section 34 rent and section 35 other terms — the O'May principle

Section 34 directs the court to fix the rent at the open market rent for which the holding might reasonably be expected to be let. The statute lists the disregards — disregard the tenant's occupation, the tenant's goodwill, the tenant's improvements (subject to conditions), and any licensed-premises licence. Surveyors apply the disregards by reference to comparable evidence.

Section 35 covers the other terms. The starting point — and this is the O'May principle, from O'May v City of London Real Property [1983] 2 AC 726 — is that the burden is on the party proposing a change from the existing lease to justify it. A landlord who wants a new and stricter user clause has to show why. A tenant who wants a longer term than the old one has to show why. Drift from the existing lease without justification will not pass.

This shapes your bundle. If the landlord is proposing a new turnover rent, the landlord's evidence has to justify it — comparable turnover-rent leases in the area, evidence of the changing market, the landlord's own portfolio practice. If the tenant is resisting, the tenant's evidence is largely about what the lease has always done and why that has worked.

Every property is different. There is no generic answer to "what should my new rent be" or "what should the new repair clause look like". Your surveyor's job is to give you the answer specific to your premises.

Costs and Calderbank offers

Costs in 1954 Act renewals follow the event in the usual way under CPR 44, but renewal claims are unusual in that both sides often want the new tenancy — the dispute is about terms, not outcome. That can push costs orders towards "no order" or "costs in the case" more often than in conventional litigation.

Calderbank offers — without prejudice save as to costs — are common and effective. A tenant who offers a rent of £42,000 nine months before trial, and beats it at trial when the judge fixes £40,000, will normally recover costs from the date of the offer. The surveyors will know this and may steer their clients towards realistic offers early. Take that seriously.

Keep your Calderbank correspondence out of the trial bundle. It belongs in a separate sealed costs bundle, opened by the judge only after judgment on the substantive issues. Mixing them up is the kind of error that costs cases.

Two practical things to look at before you issue

First, look hard at the section 25 or section 26 notice. Is it in the prescribed form? Was it served on the correct entity (the competent landlord under section 44)? Was it served in time — between six and twelve months before the date of termination it specifies? A defective notice can sink the claim before it starts, and the Mannai principles on construction will not always rescue a notice that gets the basics wrong.

Second, look at the lease itself. Is there a contracting-out under section 38A, with the proper warning notice and declaration? If so, the 1954 Act protection does not apply and there is no statutory renewal. This sounds elementary, but the number of tenants who issue Part 56 claims on contracted-out leases is not zero.

If both checks pass, you have a renewal claim. If either fails, get advice before you spend any more time on the bundle.

Next steps

A 1954 Act renewal bundle is a paper version of the decision the judge has to make. Build it from the statute backwards: section 33 (duration) needs evidence on the parties' positions and any commercial reasons. Section 34 (rent) needs surveyor evidence and comparables. Section 35 (other terms) needs O'May-compliant justification for any proposed change. Wrap that core in the procedural documents (notices, pleadings, orders) and the bundle almost organises itself.

Two weeks of preparation before the deadline beats two days of preparation after it. Get the lease marked up early, instruct the surveyor early, and read the directions order three times — once when it arrives, once when you start drafting evidence, once when you start building the bundle. The deadlines on the face of the order are the architecture of your case.

Renewal claims reward steady, methodical work. They punish last-minute heroics. The bundle is the place where that shows.

BundleCreator can help you organise the documents you'll need into a bundle aligned with the relevant practice direction. We offer a 14-day trial, and templates for commercial property disputes sit ready in your library.