A recent landmark High Court ruling has effectively legalised ‘imaginative’ empty business rates avoidance tactics reports commercial property agent Prop-Search.
The case involved the use by Makro Wholesaling of just 0.2% of the floor space of a 140,000 sq ft warehouse in Coventry, for the storage of business documents. Following an unsuccessful Magistrates Court case in 2011, Makro appealed the decision to the High Court.
Judge Jarman QC ruled that Makro’s temporary use of the warehouse to store 16 pallets of documents between November 2009 and January 2010 was sufficient to trigger a further six month period of exemption from empty rates once the files were removed.
Chris Billson, a Director at Prop-Search, said: “This judgement will no doubt be welcomed by landlords and ratepayers suffering from the high costs of empty property rates. It also gives further impetus and support to the use of empty rates avoidance scheme.”
Prop-Search confirms that there have been renewed calls in recent months for the Government to scrap empty property rates. Indeed, MP Julian Sturdy has now been tasked with forming a working group to produce proposals on how the empty rates rules could be changed to take account of the economic circumstances affecting businesses.
Chris Billson concluded; “We have been successfully advising clients on empty rates avoidance strategies for many years. This new High Court judgement may substantially assist this process in the future.”
