Your tied prices just went up. The Pubs Code gives you 21 days to do something about it

The tied price list lands once a year and the numbers only move one way. Most tenants read it, have a moan in the group chat, and reprice the board. Almost nobody checks whether the rise just opened a legal window worth real money, because the Pubs Code puts a clock on it. If the increase is big enough to count as significant, you get 21 days from the invoice to ask for a free-of-tie option. Day 22, the window is shut for another year. Here's the formula that decides it, the two deadlines, and the paper trail that does the arguing for you.

I run a tied pub in the North East. I'm not a lawyer and nothing here is legal advice, it's a licensee reading the same PCA factsheets you can read, with the arithmetic done. When the numbers get serious, pay for an hour with a solicitor who does Pubs Code work. What I can do is make sure you never miss the window because you didn't know it existed.

First, check the Code even covers you

The Pubs Code applies in England and Wales, and only to tied tenants of the six companies with 500 or more tied pubs: Stonegate, Greene King, Admiral Taverns, Star Pubs & Bars, Marston's and Punch. If your landlord is a family brewer or a small pubco under that line, the Code's rights don't apply to you. You still have your lease, your BDM and whatever goodwill exists, but not the machinery below.

If you are with one of the six, you also have a Code Compliance Officer at your pubco whose actual job is Code compliance, and behind them the Pubs Code Adjudicator, the statutory regulator. These aren't decorations. In July 2026 the PCA opened a formal investigation into Stonegate, the biggest of the six, covering five years of conduct. More on that below, because it changes the mood of every conversation a tied tenant has this year.

What counts as a significant price rise

This is the bit almost nobody has read, and it's a formula, not a feeling. The Code compares what your last four weeks of tied purchases would cost at the new prices against what the same four weeks cost a year ago, works out the percentage rise, and checks it against a threshold made of two parts: the annual CPI inflation figure most recently published before the invoice, plus a fixed percentage that depends on the product.

The significant increase thresholds under the Pubs Code. The rise is measured over a 4-week period against the same period a year earlier, and is significant if it beats CPI plus the fixed percentage. Source: PCA factsheet on significant increases in price.

What went up	Fixed percentage	The rise is significant if it beats
Beer	3%	CPI + 3%
Other alcoholic drinks	8%	CPI + 8%
Non-alcoholic products and services	20%	CPI + 20%

Worked example, with a made-up CPI so you can see the shape of it. Say your last four weeks of tied beer would cost £4,340 at the new prices, and the same four weeks last year cost £3,980. That's a 9% rise. If CPI printed at 3.2% that month, the beer threshold is 3.2 + 3 = 6.2%. Nine beats 6.2, so that is a significant increase in price, and your rights below switch on. Run the same sum at 5% and nothing has triggered, however much it stings.

Notice what the formula needs from you: what you actually bought, four weeks this year and the same four weeks last year, at line level. If your invoice history lives in a carrier bag, you cannot run it. That's the real reason to keep every delivery note and invoice somewhere you can query, and it's why I built invoice scanning into my own app. Photograph the delivery note, the cost prices update per product, and a year later the comparison is a report instead of an evening on the kitchen table.

The two clocks that start with the invoice

A significant increase gives you two separate rights, each with its own deadline, and both clocks start when the invoice showing the new prices arrives, not when the price list letter did.

The first is a rent assessment. You can ask for one within 14 days, starting the day you receive the invoice. The logic is plain enough: the tie is supposed to be balanced by the rent, so if the wet side just got heavier, the dry side is up for discussion.

The second is the big one, the Market Rent Only option. You can serve an MRO notice within 21 days, starting the day after you receive the invoice. MRO means you ask for a free-of-tie tender: a rent proposal at open market rate, with the tie removed, assessed independently if you and the pubco can't agree. You'd pay more rent and buy your beer wherever you like at open-market wholesale prices well below tied list.

Fourteen and twenty-one days. That's shorter than a keg lasts. The day a post-rise invoice lands, the diary entry goes in before the delivery gets stacked, because no one at the pubco is under any duty to remind you.

MRO is a lever, not just an exit

Here's the part the factsheets are too polite to say out loud. Most tenants who go down the MRO road don't end up free of tie. What happens is the pubco, faced with losing the wholesale margin on your barrelage entirely, finds room it didn't have before: a better discount, investment that had been stuck, a softer rent. The MRO notice is the only moment in the relationship where you're negotiating with a real alternative on the table, which is why the 21-day window matters even if you never intend to leave the tie. You don't get that position without the live notice, and you can't serve the notice without the trigger.

Be honest with yourself about the other side of it too. Free of tie means open-market rent, sourcing your own stock, your own cellar tech cover, and no pubco to lean on when the boiler dies. Some tenants do the sums and stay tied on better terms, and that's a win, not a defeat. The point is that it becomes your choice, priced, instead of a letter you absorb.

The Stonegate investigation, and why it matters beyond Stonegate

On 15 July 2026 the Pubs Code Adjudicator, Fiona Dickie, opened a formal investigation into Stonegate Group covering conduct from July 2021 to July 2026. The suspected breaches read like a tied tenants' group thread: inaccurate information about premises, defective lists of initial works and repairs not done, unrealistic rent projections and unsustainable business plans, refusing reasonable information requests during rent negotiations, conduct of business development managers, and inaccurate compliance reporting to the PCA itself. The call for evidence ran to 12 August 2026 and is now closed, with the investigation ongoing.

The same regulator's 2026 tenant survey put Stonegate bottom of the six on tenant satisfaction at 39%, with Admiral top at 72%. Whatever the investigation concludes, the message to every tied tenant is the same: the Code has teeth, the regulator is currently baring them at the biggest operator in the country, and the tenants who get anywhere are the ones with paperwork. Nobody's evidence submission read "I'm fairly sure prices went up a lot". The useful ones had invoices.

What I'd do the day the invoice lands

Not the price list letter. The first invoice at the new prices. That day:

1. Diary day 14 and day 21. Phone calendar, two alarms. This costs nothing and preserves every option you have.
2. Run the significance sum. Four weeks of purchases at new prices versus the same four weeks last year, per category. Beer against CPI + 3, spirits and wine against CPI + 8. If you can't run it because you don't have last year's invoices, start keeping them today, because there will be another rise next year.
3. Price the rise in pints. A £360 monthly increase on your beer account is roughly 160 pints of gross profit at 2026 prices. Knowing that number changes the conversation with your BDM from a grumble into arithmetic. My GP guide shows the method.
4. If it's significant, get advice inside the window. A solicitor who does Pubs Code work, or start with the PCA's own factsheets and your pubco's Code Compliance Officer. Serve nothing you don't understand, but don't let day 21 pass while you think about it. You can ask for the rent assessment and consider MRO at the same time.
5. Reprice the board deliberately. You can rarely pass the whole rise on, the going rate in your town doesn't care about your cost sheet. Decide which lines carry the increase and which you'll hold, using per-line GP rather than a blanket 20p. The GP benchmark guide has the reference numbers.

The paper trail is the whole game

Everything above runs on one habit: knowing your cost prices per product over time, with dates. It settles whether a rise is significant. It feeds a rent assessment. It's what an MRO assessor, a solicitor, or a PCA investigation actually wants from you. And between rises it quietly tells you your GP is drifting before the stocktaker's letter does.

Keep it however suits you. A folder and a spreadsheet works if you'll keep it up. StockTap's version is the Scan Delivery Note button: photograph the paperwork, it drafts the lines, you approve, and every product's cost history builds itself while the stock figures update. Fourteen days free, no card, and the invoice history is yours to export whether you stay or not.

Common questions

What counts as a significant price increase under the Pubs Code?

It's a formula, not a feeling. Compare what your last four weeks of tied purchases would cost at the new prices with what the same four weeks cost a year earlier. If the percentage rise beats the latest annual CPI figure plus 3% for beer, 8% for other alcoholic drinks, or 20% for non-alcoholic products and services, it's significant and your Pubs Code rights are triggered.

How long do I have to act after a significant tied price rise?

Two clocks, both started by the invoice showing the new prices. You can request a rent assessment within 14 days starting the day you receive the invoice, and you can serve a Market Rent Only notice within 21 days starting the day after you receive it. Miss the window and the rights wait for the next trigger.

What is the Market Rent Only option?

MRO is the right to ask for a free-of-tie tender: your pub at an open-market rent with the tie removed, independently assessed if you and the pubco can't agree, so you buy stock wherever you like. It's available at set trigger points including a significant price increase. Many tenants use the notice as a bargaining lever and end up staying tied on better terms.

Does the Pubs Code apply to my pub?

Only if you're a tied tenant in England or Wales of a company with 500 or more tied pubs: Stonegate, Greene King, Admiral Taverns, Star Pubs & Bars, Marston's or Punch. Tenants of family brewers and smaller pubcos aren't covered by the Code's rights.

What is the PCA investigating Stonegate about?

The Pubs Code Adjudicator opened a formal investigation on 15 July 2026 covering conduct from July 2021 to July 2026. Suspected breaches include inaccurate information for tenants, defective lists of initial works, unrealistic rent projections, refusing reasonable information requests, business development manager conduct and inaccurate compliance reporting. The call for evidence closed on 12 August 2026 and the investigation is ongoing.