#1 Landlords’ Tricks Exposed: Tenant Tactics for Beating Unfair Rent Reviews
Commercial rent reviews are where many small businesses quietly lose money, often without realising how or why. Landlords and their agents rely on complexity, selective evidence, and information imbalance to push rents higher. The good news? Once you understand how open market rent is really assessed, the playing field levels dramatically.
This article exposes common landlord tactics and arms tenants with practical strategies to challenge them.
The “Open Market” Myth
Landlords often present rent reviews as objective and inevitable. In reality, the “open market rent” is a hypothetical construct. It assumes a willing landlord and tenant negotiating a deal, not your landlord’s target figure or your business’s affordability. If a landlord claims “the market has moved,” the burden is on them to prove it with proper comparable evidence.
Trick #1: Cherry-Picked Comparables
A favourite tactic is referencing:
A neighbouring unit with a higher rent
A recently advertised property
A deal agreed years ago under very different market conditions
Tenant tactic: Demand full lease details, not just the rent. Comparable evidence must reflect:
Similar size and layout
Similar lease length and obligations
Similar incentives (rent-free periods, break clauses)
Similar location detailing surrounding transport links (train station, motorways/arterial roads)
Other points to carefully consider are the surrounding businesses and local amenities (used to determine the attractiveness of the area) and site access.
If those details aren’t disclosed, the evidence isn’t comparable.
Trick #2: Inflated Floor Areas
Even small discrepancies in measured area can significantly increase rent. Landlords may rely on outdated or unverified measurements, often lifted from rating assessments.
Tenant tactic: Challenge the measurement basis. Rating areas are notoriously unreliable and often out of date. Independent measurement or joint inspection can quickly undermine inflated figures.
Trick #3: “Confidential” Evidence
Landlords and agents often imply that evidence can’t be shared due to confidentiality, while still expecting tenants to accept the unsupported conclusion.
Tenant tactic: Confidentiality does not invalidate scrutiny. You are entitled to understand:
When the deal was agreed
On what terms
Whether both parties accepted the analysis
Unverified settlements or one-sided interpretations should be treated with scepticism.
Trick #4: Overlooking Lease Terms
Rent is not a standalone number, it’s the product of the lease. A higher rent on a lease with generous incentives may actually be less valuable than a lower rent on harsher terms.
Tenant tactic: Insist on like-for-like analysis. Adjustments must be made for:
Repairing obligations
Break options
Rent-free periods
Length of term
If adjustments aren’t explained, they probably haven’t been done.
Final Thought “Knowledge Is POWER”
Rent reviews are not about who shouts loudest, they’re about evidence, detail, and technical reasoning. Landlords rely on tenants being underprepared, uninformed or intimidated by process.
Small businesses that question assumptions, demand transparency and understand what truly makes evidence “comparable” are far harder to exploit. When landlords and their agents attempt to take advantage, the most powerful response is informed resistance. Know the rules, interrogate the data, and never accept headline figures without understanding what sits beneath them.
Because in commercial property, details decide rent and details are where tenants can win. Remember a rent review is not a foregone conclusion. It’s a negotiation framed by evidence, and just like you see on TV, the evidence can always be challenged.
