Grade II Listed Colwyn Chambers on York Street in Manchester. Vacant offices in this building are exempt from empty business rates because the property is Listed.
Has your business vacated a Listed building recently? If so, you might be able to reclaim some of your business rates and the sums involved could be significant.
We have just successfully recovered over £100,000 for a client which vacated a Listed building in Glasgow 4 years ago. The client was unaware of the exemption and had therefore been continuing to pay the local authority the business rates it demanded of around £25,000 a year, for no good reason! The question is, how many more businesses have been wasting similar or even greater sums of money?
Ordinarily, you do not have to pay business rates on empty buildings for 3 months once they fall vacant. However, after this time, most businesses become liable to pay full business rates. But there are some exceptions. The one that often gets overlooked is Listed buildings.
If you currently rent or have in the past rented space in a Listed office building which you subsequently vacated, you should have been exempt from paying business rates. Even if you have since disposed of your lease, it may be possible to secure a retrospective rebate. As we found in our most recent case, the corporate client had been unaware of the exemption until we were appointed as their property adviser.
If you would like advice on your business rates liabilities or indeed, any other aspect of your commercial property holdings, please call Martyn Markland on 0161 457 1422 or email him at mm@tenantag.co.uk.