Small business rates relief - second property

natural1988

Free Member
Oct 25, 2013
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I am looking at renting an office - the office I am most interested in is being let by the agent as one property but listed by the VOA as two.

The rateable value of the main office is £6,800 - my understanding is (assuming I qualify for small business relief) that would cost approx. £435 per year in rates ((6800 * 0.48)*0.133).

The second part of the property is much smaller and the rateable value is currently £1,400 - to qualify for small business rates relief you must have only one property or the rateable value of the second property must be less than £2,600 which, in this case, it is.

"You can get small business rate relief if the rateable value of each of your other properties is less than £2,600."

However, the council are insisting that BOTH properties need to have an RV of less than £2,600 to qualify which is not how I read the section quoted above on the UK Gov website - they told me to check with the VOA but they say it is nothing to do with them as the actual collection etc is done by the council and all they do is the initial valuation.

Of course, the ideal scenario would be for the landlord to get them both re evaluated as a single property but he is reluctant to do so.

There is quite a difference - £1,107 per year versus £3,936 so I want to check who is correct. Does anyone have any experience of this who could comment?
 
Pretty much self explanatory!

2. Small business rate relief


You can get small business rate relief if:

  • you only use one property
  • your property’s rateable value is less than £12,000
Contact your local council to apply for small business rate relief.

What you get
You’ll get 100% relief (doubled from the usual rate of 50%) until 31 March 2016 for properties with a rateable value of £6,000 or less. This means you won’t pay business rates on properties with a rateable value of £6,000 or less.

The rate of relief will gradually decrease from 100% to 0% for properties with a rateable value between £6,001 and £12,000.

You have more than one property
You can get small business rate relief if the rateable value of each of your other properties is less than £2,600.

The rateable values of the properties are added together and the relief applied to the main property.

You’ll keep getting any existing relief for one year when you get a second property.
 
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