Commenting on the Supreme Court ruling on business rates Ian Allison, director of business rates at BNP Paribas Real Estate, said:
“This is welcome news for all landlords and developers of commercial property. There are thousands of appeals backed up pending this judgement. The floodgates will soon burst and landlords will be refunded long-overdue rebates on business rate they have paid on empty properties that, as the Supreme Court has made clear, should never have been paid in the first place.
“The original position that had been adopted for hundreds of years, whereby buildings that are incapable of occupation should not be rated, has been restored.
“In my opinion the Valuation Office’s interpretation of the 1999 Act stretched the meaning of the word ‘repair’. The court has passed a judgement that is both common sense and practical to implement.”