Questions & Answers - Empty Property Rates
You can contact our team of experts at any time either by filling in the contact page on our website or by telephone on 0203 102 9550. Our team will be happy to discuss your premises and any questions you may have. You may find some of the more common questions in relation to our empty property product answered below.
Q: Am I liable to pay empty property rates?
A: If you own business premises, whether leisure, industrial, offices or retail, which are currently unoccupied then the likelihood is you are liable to pay full business rates after 3 months, or 6 months for industrial units.
Q: How much do I have to pay in rates without one of your products?
A: If you do not have any product in place to reduce your liability you will have to pay the full rates.
Q: How much do I have to pay in rates if I use an empty property product?
A: If you use our empty property products then you will not pay any rates at all. All our empty property products achieve full relief from all rates. from day 1.. All other methods require a 6-week period where full rates are payable.
Q: What if I sell or lease my premises?
A: If you sell or lease your premises then our products can come to an immediate end with only hours notice.
Q: Do the products work in all cases?
A: In all cases our client's have avoided all rates liability.
Q: Are the products allowed?
A: As with income tax, you are allowed by law to mitigate your position. Our products are designed to work within the current law to take
advantage of exemptions. We use tried and tested products to ensure relief is obtained for the client. If any rates are payable under a product these are covered and billed directly to the tenant.
Q: What happens if the council objects to the scheme?
A: Our in-house team has recourse to legal experts in this field and we take on full liability to argue the points and, if necessary, defend the position in court. Where this has happened, we have been successful every time, setting legal precedents along the way.
Q: Are there other methods to mitigate my rates position?
A: Yes! There are a large number of ways to mitigate your position. We have produced a paper discussing the pros and cons of each scheme. Please fill in the contact form and we will send it to you. As a result of such research we use our own method The Lincoln method is the most efficient - the best savings, the least bureaucratic and fully compliant with government regulations. We can also implement other schemes, for example we use SPVs (Special Purpose Vehicles) and MVL's (Member's Voluntary Liquidation) from time to time.
We do not favour the use of Intermittent Occupancy (utilising the rates-free period) as this does not offer optimal savings. There can be problems with MVLs. as they are bureaucratic, take time to set up and there is little control over the end date of the MVL process. Whilst they do not require any occupation, they are too costly for anything but very large premises..