Business Rates: Box Shifting Mitigation Scheme

Senior readers may remember Take Your Pick, a TV game show where contestants who correctly answered general knowledge questions won the chance to choose a prize inside one of a number of boxes. Some boxes held valuable prizes; others contained joke items. The host tempted these winners with increasing cash offers in exchange for the key to their chosen boxes. In seeking the best reward, each winner decided whether to take the money or open the box!

The Court of Appeal has, in terms of rating, “opened the box”. The result is that billing authorities will be “taking the money”.

Occupation

Section 45, Local Government Finance Act 1988 (LGFA) imposes rating liability on the owner of a hereditament where “none of the hereditament is occupied”, subject to further detail in regulations. The current regulations exclude from unoccupied rates any hereditament which, in general terms, “has been unoccupied for a continuous period not exceeding three months”.