Before you sign a tied pub: what the Pubs Code makes the pubco hand over, and the numbers I'd check first

If you're about to take on a tied pub from one of the six big pubcos, the Pubs Code makes them hand you a pile of paper before you sign: the current tied price list, a Schedule of Condition, the repair and dilapidations rules, whether you have to buy the fixtures and fittings, and a rent proposal with a forecast profit and loss signed off by a RICS surveyor. Then they have to be satisfied your own business plan is sustainable, sensitivity analysis and all. Most people skim the lot because they want the keys. The forecast P&L is the bit I'd sit down with, with a calculator and the price list next to it, because that's where a bad deal hides.

Most of what gets written about the Pubs Code is for after you've signed. This is the before. It covers what the Code actually says you're owed, in plain English, and the checks I'd do on the numbers before I put my name to anything.

Quick scope check first. The Pubs Code only applies in England and Wales, and only to tied tenants of the companies with 500 or more tied pubs: Stonegate, Greene King, Admiral Taverns, Star Pubs & Bars, Marston's and Punch. If you're signing with a smaller brewery or pubco, none of this is a legal duty, though it's still a decent list of things to ask for. My tied price rises guide has the scope in more detail.

The order it's supposed to happen in

The Code sets a sequence. Information first, then independent advice, then your business plan, then the pubco agrees the plan, then you sign. The Pubs Code Adjudicator lays out the pubco's side and yours like this:

The pubco must	You should	Where it's in the Code
Give you the information in Schedule 1 (tenancy, premises, repairs, tied prices and more)	Take independent professional advice on it	Regulation 11 and Schedule 1
Give you a rent proposal with a forecast P&L, prepared under RICS guidance, and advise you to get independent advice on the rent	Get a valuer or trade accountant to pull it apart	Regulations 15 to 18 and Schedule 2
Point you to published reports on tied pub trading costs, and give you them or tell you where to get them	Read them and compare the pub against them	Regulation 10(3)
Advise you to inspect the premises and use a surveyor with tied pub experience	Go and look, more than once, and pay for the survey	PCA guidance on pre-entry duties
Advise you to do pubs entry training, unless you're exempt	Do it if it applies	Regulation 9
Be satisfied your business plan is sustainable before signing	Write the plan, with forecasts and a sensitivity analysis	Regulation 10

If the paperwork arrives in a different order, or the plan is "agreed" before you've had the rent proposal, that's worth noticing. It's also worth writing down. Anything a business development manager tells you about the rent, the repairs, the tie or investment while you're negotiating counts as part of the deal conversation, and my BDM visit notes guide covers how to get that on paper too.

What Schedule 1 says they must give you

Schedule 1 is the long list. I've grouped it the way I'd read it, with what each bit is actually for.

What you're owed	Why it matters at the bar
The type of tenancy, its length, start and end dates, whether either side can end it early, and whether it's a protected 1954 Act tenancy	Decides whether you can renew, and how much security you're paying for
A full description of the premises: the premises licence and its conditions, any enforcement action in the last two years (where known), foreseeable changes to local trading conditions, restrictions on use or hours, and any specific problems	A licence condition or an enforcement history can kill the trade you've forecast before you've pulled a pint
A Schedule of Condition, and if works are planned, a separate one from before the works, a list of the works and who pays	This is the baseline your dilapidations bill gets measured against when you leave
Who repairs what, the pubco's own repair procedures, and how dilapidations are assessed, including when the end-of-term survey happens and how disputes get resolved	The biggest cost most tenants never budget for. My dilapidations guide has the rest
Whether you have to buy the fixtures and fittings, and how you pay for them	Can be thousands on top of the deposit. Get an inventory valuation, not a guess
The pubco's investment policy, and if they're considering investing in your pub, the potential impact on your rent	Investment can come with strings, including the investment exception that suspends some MRO routes
Your obligations on utilities, environmental impact and health and safety	Who pays to fix the boiler or the cellar cooling matters more than it sounds
Tied products and services: the current price list and notice of any imminent changes, available discounts, what you can buy outside the tie, and the terms for any gaming machines	The single most important document for your margin. Everything in the P&L should reconcile to it
Whether the tenancy can be assigned or sold, and the procedure	Your exit route if it doesn't work out
The advice and support available during the tenancy	Worth asking what it actually is, in writing

The PCA also says the pubco must tell you, before you sign, the amount of any deposit, any interest arrangement on it, and when and how it gets repaid. If you're taking over an existing tenancy by assignment, the pubco has to be satisfied the incoming tenant has had the same information, and the outgoing tenant has to be told about any dilapidations the pubco wants sorted first.

The rent proposal and the forecast P&L

For a new agreement, the pubco has to give you a rent proposal before you consider your independent advice. It has to be prepared in line with the RICS guidance and come with written confirmation from a RICS member or fellow that it has been. Schedule 2 sets out what goes in it, and the meaty part is a forecast profit and loss statement for the first 12 months, with the figures behind it. That includes:

• The volume of alcohol bought from the pubco over the last three years, including barrels, and what share of turnover that was
• If it's different, the volume of alcohol duty was paid on over the same three years
• Estimated sales and gross profit margins split out for draught ales, draught lagers, packaged beers, draught and packaged ciders, wines, spirits, flavoured alcoholic drinks and soft drinks, and each one's share of turnover
• An estimate of the draught beer and cider that won't be sold, wasted, unfit for sale or given away in promotions, if it isn't already in the margins
• Estimated operating costs, including a manager if you won't be running it yourself, how machine income has been treated, and any costs buried inside other lines, cellar gas being the Code's own example

All of it net of VAT. And under regulation 18 you can ask for more. If you or your adviser make a reasonable request for information relevant to the rent, they have to provide it or give you a reasonable explanation why not within 7 days. Use that. "How did you get to this GP on draught lager?" is a reasonable request.

One thing to hold onto. The PCA's own article on pre-tenancy tips quotes a trade accountant pointing out that the turnover in these forecasts is a fair maintainable trade figure, what a reasonably efficient operator might do, not necessarily what the pub is doing now. There's no guarantee you'll hit it. That isn't a reason to distrust it. It's a reason to test it.

The checks I'd do on the numbers

This is where I'd spend the evening. None of it needs anything more than the price list, the forecast and a calculator.

Does the GP reconcile to the tied price list?

Take your best-selling draught line. Work out what a pint costs you from the tied price list, then what it makes at the selling price the forecast assumes. Here's the shape of the sum, with made-up but realistic numbers:

Step	Example
Tied price of an 11-gallon keg, ex VAT	£200.00
Sellable pints (88 in the keg, about 84 after line and keg losses)	84
Cost per sellable pint	£2.38
Selling price £5.34, minus VAT	£4.45
Gross profit per pint	£2.07
GP%	46.5%

If the forecast says that line runs at 55%, ask how. Maybe it assumes a higher selling price than the area will take, or no waste at all. Either way you want to know before you sign, not at your first stocktake. The 84-pints figure and the £5.34 average pint come from my pints in a keg guide and average pint price guide, and the method is in how to calculate GP%. If you want to see how far tied prices sit from free trade, my tied vs free-trade price comparison has one pubco's published list set against a wholesaler's.

Is there a waste line, and is it real?

Schedule 2 makes the pubco estimate the draught that won't be sold. Every pub loses some to line cleaning, the bottom of the keg, fobbing and the odd pint that goes back. If the forecast shows nothing, or a figure that would only be true with perfect lines and no cleaning, the GP is overstated. I've written about this line in detail in my rent assessment guide, and what's normal is in my draught wastage guide.

What does the three-year volume history say?

Three years of barrelage tells you which way the pub is going, which a single year hides. A forecast that shows next year beating all three previous years needs a reason: a refurb, a new kitchen, a competitor shutting. And if the volume duty was paid on differs from what was bought through the tie, ask the pubco to explain the gap.

What happens at minus 10%?

Your plan has to include a sensitivity analysis anyway, so make it bite. Run the P&L with turnover 10% down and 20% down, with the rent and fixed costs unchanged, and see where the money for you runs out. If it's gone at minus 10%, that's a pub where one bad winter or one new competitor ends you. Pubs don't make much. My pub profit guide has the published figure, about 3p in the pound for a wet-led pub, and it doesn't leave much room for an optimistic forecast.

The sustainable business plan is yours, not theirs

Regulation 10 says the pubco must make sure you have a sustainable business plan before you sign. To count, the plan has to be prepared after you've considered independent professional advice, and it has to include forecasts of income and expenditure for the tenancy period (up to five years, or to the first rent review if sooner), a sensitivity analysis, and the effect of any rent indexation or other cost increases built into the agreement. The pubco has to think the income and profit forecast is reasonable for you and realistic.

Read that the other way round. The pubco agreeing your plan doesn't make it right. It means they've seen it. Your accountant should be the one telling you whether you'll be able to pay yourself.

The pubco also has to point you to publicly available reports that analyse tied pub trading costs and tenancy costs, so you've got something independent to compare the pub against. Ask which ones they're relying on, and read them.

Training, short agreements and the exemptions

Unless you already run another tied pub, have at least three years of relevant business management experience, or have had a tied tenancy from that pubco before, they must advise you to complete pubs entry training. The BII's Pre-Entry Awareness Training is the usual one, and the PCA mentions it by name. If you've never run a pub, do it whatever the rules say.

Short agreements are lighter. Before one, the pubco only has to give you the rent, the utilities arrangements and a narrower slice of Schedule 1 (repairs, dilapidations and condition, utilities and safety obligations, the tie and its price list, among others), and advise on the training unless you're exempt. No full rent proposal and no sustainable business plan requirement. That's why short agreements are quick to sign, and why I'd still ask for the forecast anyway.

Why this matters more than it used to

The PCA opened a formal investigation into Stonegate in July 2026, and one of the areas it's looking at is alleged unrealistic rent projections. Nothing's been decided, and it may be next year before it is. But it tells you the regulator thinks the forecasts are worth checking. My Stonegate investigation explainer is where I'm tracking it.

After you sign

The day you take the keys, you'll do an ingoing stock valuation, and that's your first real number. My taking over a pub guide covers how to make sure you're not paying for someone else's dead stock. Then count properly from week one. The forecast P&L had a GP for every category. Your stocktakes will tell you within a couple of months whether you're anywhere near it, and that's the evidence you'll want at the first rent review.

If you're using StockTap, set the cost prices from the tied price list on day one, so every GP figure it gives you is against what you actually pay. If you're on paper, do the same thing on the sheet.

My take

The Code gives prospective tenants more paper than any other part of the job. It's free, it's yours by law, and it's mostly ignored because people are excited to get in. Don't sign until the forecast reconciles to the price list and your accountant has run it at minus 10%. A waste line that only works with perfect lines and no cleaning is a question to ask before signing, not after. And if the pubco won't explain a number, that tells you something too.

This is my plain-English read of the Code, not legal advice. Get a solicitor, a trade accountant and a surveyor with tied pub experience before you sign, which is what the Code says the pubco has to tell you anyway.

Common questions

What does a pubco have to give you before you sign a tied lease?

Under the Pubs Code, the information in Schedule 1: the tenancy terms, a description of the premises including the licence and a Schedule of Condition, repair and dilapidations procedures, whether you must buy the fixtures and fittings, the investment policy, the current tied price list and discounts, what you can buy out of tie, assignment rules and the support available. For a new agreement they must also give you a rent proposal with a forecast P&L under RICS guidance.

What is a sustainable business plan under the Pubs Code?

A business plan prepared after considering independent professional advice, with forecasts of income and expenditure for the tenancy period (up to five years or the first rent review), a sensitivity analysis and the effect of any rent indexation. The pubco must be satisfied it's reasonable and realistic before the agreement is signed.

Does the Pubs Code apply to short agreements?

Partly. Before a short agreement the pubco must give you the rent, the utilities arrangements and selected Schedule 1 information, including repairs, condition, the tie and its price list, and advise you to do pubs entry training unless you're exempt. There's no full rent proposal or sustainable business plan requirement.

Can I ask the pubco for more information about the rent?

Yes. Under regulation 18 the pubco must comply with any reasonable request for information relevant to negotiating or understanding the rent, or give you a reasonable explanation why not, within 7 days of receiving the request.