If your business property is unoccupied you may be
liable to pay empty property rates.
These rates are charged at 100% of the your bill and begin after
the property has been empty for either three months or six
months.
The three month exemption applies to commercial non-industrial
property (such as offices, shops). The six months exemption applies
to industrial property.
However, certain types of property are exempt and do not have to
pay empty property rates.
These include premises classed as qualifying industrial properties
which are those constructed or adapted for use in the course of a
trade or business and for use for one or more of the following
purposes:
- The manufacture, repair or adaptation of goods or materials and
where they are subject to any process such as a factory
- The storage or handling of goods in the course of their
distribution such as a warehouse
- The working or processing of minerals
- The generation of electricity.
However, this exemption does not apply to any retail
properties.
The initial three or six month exemption applies from the date
the property is first empty (including storage), and cannot be
re-awarded if the empty property is subsequently sold.
The following business properties are exempt:
- Those with a rateable value under £2,600
- Those prohibited by law from being occupied
- Those kept empty due to action taken by or on behalf of the
Crown or any local or public authority with a view to prohibiting
occupation
- Those subject to a building preservation notice, scheduled as
an ancient monument or certain listed buildings
- Those where the person entitled to possession of the property
is acting as a personal representative of a deceased person, as a
liquidator, a trustee under a deed of arrangement or where the
owner is the subject of bankruptcy proceedings.
- Where the owner of the empty property is a
charity.
