The Tribunal Procedure Committee has amended the Property Chamber rules so that proceedings under Part 2 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1954 sit expressly within rule 13's costs regime. The change arrives alongside SI 2026/569, which comes into force on 30 July 2026 and transfers certain 1954 Act disputes into the tribunal structure. (statutoryinstruments.parliament.uk) In practical terms, the immediate effect is narrower than the bare reference to Part 2 might suggest. The explanatory notes to the Product Security and Telecommunications Infrastructure Act 2022 say section 65 was designed to allow Part 2 cases to be heard in the First-tier Tribunal or Upper Tribunal where the primary purpose of a subsisting agreement is to grant code rights, so the new rule is aimed at the telecoms business-tenancy subset rather than the whole universe of 1954 Act litigation. (legislation.gov.uk)
Part 2 of the 1954 Act is the business tenancy security-of-tenure code. It applies to tenancies where premises are occupied for the purposes of a business, and it preserves continuation and renewal rights unless the tenancy is brought to an end in accordance with the Act. (legislation.gov.uk) For telecoms, the relevant cohort is the older subsisting agreements entered into before 28 December 2017. The 2022 Act's explanatory notes say those agreements fall outside the Code's Part 5 renewal route, which is why sections 61 to 65 were used to align rent, compensation and forum rules more closely across the different renewal paths. (legislation.gov.uk)
That background matters because rule 13 is not a single default rule applied identically across every Property Chamber case. In the current rules, the tribunal may award wasted costs, may award costs where a person has acted unreasonably, and already has separate costs categories for land registration cases and proceedings under the Electronic Communications Code. (gov.uk) Adding Part 2 1954 Act proceedings to that list means advisers should not assume that transferred business-tenancy telecoms cases will sit inside the ordinary low-cost expectations sometimes associated with the chamber. GOV.UK guidance for residential property disputes still describes the usual starting point there as each side bearing its own costs, subject to limited exceptions; the new 1954 Act work is being placed on a more specific footing. (gov.uk)
The committee's own minutes indicate that the policy intent is calibration rather than a wholesale rewrite. In February 2026 the TPC recorded that DSIT's proposals on telecoms cases were technical, intended to clarify the existing costs framework rather than introduce a substantive change, and in March it referred again to a related clarification of the treatment of costs in these cases. (assets.publishing.service.gov.uk) That does not make the amendment minor in operational terms. Once a jurisdiction moves from court to tribunal, express wording on costs affects how cases are budgeted, how settlement is approached and what clients are told at issue stage. It is reasonable to infer that the presence of a defined costs route will feature much earlier in correspondence and case management than it would in a more clearly cost-neutral tribunal setting. (assets.publishing.service.gov.uk)
For landlords and site providers, the amendment removes one area of procedural ambiguity when contesting renewal terms or resisting an operator's position. For operators occupying under protected business tenancies, the move into tribunal does not mean cost exposure disappears simply because the forum changes. (legislation.gov.uk) For advisers, the practical response before 30 July 2026 is to treat costs as a live part of the case from the outset. Retainers, settlement correspondence and internal risk assessments should all reflect the prospect of a costs application alongside the underlying arguments on rent, compensation and renewal terms. The transfer instrument's commencement date is 30 July 2026. (statutoryinstruments.parliament.uk)
The wider statutory architecture explains why this short amendment matters. The 2022 Act already recast how rent and compensation are handled for older code-rights agreements renewed through the 1954 Act, and section 65 was expressly intended to let government place those disputes within the specialist tribunal system. (legislation.gov.uk) This instrument is best read as the procedural companion to that transfer. It does not alter the underlying policy of business-tenancy protection, but it does tell parties that when these 1954 Act telecoms disputes arrive in the Property Chamber, they will arrive with an express costs mechanism attached. (statutoryinstruments.parliament.uk)