16.—(1) The tied-pub tenant may request an MRO lease from the pub-owning business in writing and the request must include—
(a)the tenant’s name, postal address, email address (if any) and telephone number, and
(b)the name of the tied pub in relation to which the request for an offer of an MRO lease is being made and its address.
(2) The pub-owning business must make the tenant an offer of an MRO lease—
(a)in writing as soon as possible and in any event within a period of 4 weeks beginning with the day on which the tenant’s request was received by the pub-owning business,
(b)which complies with the requirements set out in paragraph (3).
(3) The conditions referred to in paragraph (2) are that the offer of an MRO lease must—
(a)include a draft deed of variation, or a draft lease where the tenant consents to a new lease being offered,
(b)provide for a new rent.
(4) When making an offer of an MRO lease, a pub-owning business must—
(a)provide information about any assumptions, disregards, information or sources of information used to calculate the proposed rent, and
(b)advise tenants to take independent advice on the terms of the MRO lease.
(5) Following the offer of an MRO lease there is to be a negotiation period during which the pub-owning business and the tenant are to use their best endeavours to agree terms and enter into an MRO lease as soon as possible.
(6) The negotiation period is to last no longer than a period of 8 weeks beginning with the day on which the offer of an MRO lease is received by the tenant.
(7) The negotiation period may be extended by up to 4 weeks by agreement between the pub-owning business and the tenant.
(8) The pub-owning business and the tenant are to meet their own legal costs in connection with entering into an MRO lease.