Separate Floors: Overrated?

Further to the article "Who uses the stairs anyway?" in the Summer edition of QIA, the Supreme Court have now issued their judgement in relation to the Woolway v Mazars case.

In Woolway (VO) v Mazars LLP [2015] UKSC 53 the Supreme Court has reversed the decision of the Court of Appeal and ruled that two geographically separate floors of the same office building in the same occupation, must be treated as separate rateable hereditaments. This decision goes against the occupier, who had applied to merge the floors as one hereditament for the purposes of the rating list. The detrimental consequence of the Mazars decision for tenants is that two separate hereditaments are likely to produce a higher rates liability than one large hereditament.