A consultation exercise is underway to gather views on proposals to reform the system of tax relief on empty business properties.
The changes are set out in a Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities document entitled “Business Rates Avoidance and Evasion”.
The Government is seeking to tighten the rules to reduce the number of false claims that are being made.
And it comes as latest research from the British Retail Consortium shows that around 6,000 shops have closed across Britain over the past five years.
Currently Empty Property Relief is granted to unoccupied non-domestic properties, listed properties, properties with the rateable value under £2,900 and properties where the ratepayer is a charity/trustee of a charity/amateur sports club.
Vacant properties are eligible for business rates relief for three months, or six months for industrial units.
The same property cannot then benefit from a further period of relief until it has been occupied for a minimum of six weeks, known as a reset period. Under the plans the reset period would increase to a minimum of between three and six months.
The new regulations, if accepted, would also mean a reduction in the number of times a property could benefit from Empty Property Relief.
There are supplementary proposals to add additional conditions to the meaning of occupation, and to replace the Relief with a local discretionary scheme.
The Government announced the consultation in the Spring Budget to explore the causes of, and potential measures to combat, avoidance, evasion, and poor rating agent behaviour within the business rates system, to protect essential funding for local services.
The consultation and ways of taking part can be found by clicking here.
