Surveyors? Empty rates now exempt under £15,000 RV

[Piglet]

In the PBR the man with the funny eyebrows announced that empty rates relief will be reinstated for properties that are under £15,000 ratable value.

Can anyone explain to me what sort of building that would be? I know bog all about business rates other than I know that the rateable value is multiplied by a figure to get an amount payable. What I can't work out is whether £15,000 RV is a big building or a little building or whether it would vary from area to area?

I could ask our inhouse tax bod but he is currently tearing his hair out trying to resolve the VAT issues!

[superlightr]

We pay about 3.5k in business rates 8k RV and we have a 'normal' sized office front on a high street. So about double the size property we have.

We have space wise about 23foot front by 60ft long.

superlightr said:

there you go. my little work world.

Corrected to 8K RV and about 3.5k rates

Edited by superlightr on Wednesday 26th November 10:26

Edited by superlightr on Wednesday 26th November 11:20

Edited by superlightr on Wednesday 26th November 11:21

[Piglet]

Cheers, nice office!

So if your Business Rates are £8k, your rateable value is something much lower because you pay rates at RV x "the multiplier" = figure for "rates"?

Or I am really confused

From the VOA site:

"If the rateable value of your property, in Manchester, was £20,000, your local authority would multiply it by 46.2p to get a total for the year of £9,240....The multiplier usually changes each year in line with inflation."

Many of us property lawyers only have a tenuous grasp on numbers so I wish they wouldn't bugger around with this stuff!

[superlightr]

Piglet said:

Cheers, nice office!

So if your Business Rates are £8k, your rateable value is something much lower because you pay rates at RV x "the multiplier" = figure for "rates"?

Or I am really confused

From the VOA site:

"If the rateable value of your property, in Manchester, was £20,000, your local authority would multiply it by 46.2p to get a total for the year of £9,240....The multiplier usually changes each year in line with inflation."

Many of us property lawyers only have a tenuous grasp on numbers so I wish they wouldn't bugger around with this stuff!

I too went the lawyer route to avoid doing figures and accounts, didnt know there were part of the accountancy exams to do in the LSF, or on continued training, and I end up doing accounts most of my time now and not a solicitor! Doh. How does that work?

Doh - sorry made a mistake. Our RV is about 8K and we pay about 3.5K a year for each office of a similar size.

ps actually I was right its about the double the size office we have then to get a 15k RV

Edited by superlightr on Wednesday 26th November 11:02

Edited by superlightr on Wednesday 26th November 11:04

[Piglet]

Fab thanks that does give me an idea of size, I was really struggling to work out what on earth it looked like!

We're having all sorts of trouble here with VAT can completion statements (which are not VAT invoices), most of our clients don't understand (or are arguing inhouse about what it means to them!) and frankly the last thing you need is your lawyer trying to explain financial principals to you!

[jamescodriver]

I have a 7,000 sqft city centre warehouse to let which has an RV of £22,000 so approx £11,000 PA - South Wales

[Noel]

Only the smallest premises will be affected, it will have so little affect across the market they might as well not have bothered.

[john_p]

Can owners of larger premises not put up a few false walls and call them separate properties?

Edited by john_p on Wednesday 26th November 12:47

[Piglet]

Noel said:

Only the smallest premises will be affected, it will have so little affect across the market they might as well not have bothered.

That's kinda what I was wondering as the government stat (and we all know to believe those!) say that it will affect 70% of properties.

But if a fairly big warehouse is only £22k RV then by the sounds of things it will cover a lot of my client's retail premises