Business Rates

Small Business Rates Relief

This is available for a single or main property with a rateable value of up to £12,000, whereupon you will receive a percentage reduction in your rates bill for this property of up to a maximum of 50% where your rateable value is not more than £6,000. However the Government has announced that new temporary levels of relief will be available for 12 months from 1st October 2010 to 30th September 2011. Eligible rate payers will receive relief at 100% on properties with rateable values up to £6,000 with a tapered relief of between 100% and 0% for properties with rateable values between £6,001 and £12,000.

The scheme is funded through a supplement on the rate bills of those businesses not eligible for the relief. The supplement is built into the standard non-domestic rating multiplier. However, ratepayers of eligible business properties with rateable values from £12,000 to £17,999 do not have to contribute towards the relief and will have their bills calculated using the lower small business non-domestic rating multiplier.

If a ratepayer ceases to be eligible on a day during the year in question, the relief will cease on that day. The relief is available to ratepayers with either:

• 1 property, or
• 1 main property and other additional properties, providing the additional properties do not have individual rateable values that exceed £2,599, and the combined rateable value of all the properties is under £18,000 (or £25,500 in London). The threshold for the combined rateable value is dependent on the location of the main property.

Eligible businesses with rateable values from £12,000 to £17,999 will have their liability calculated using the small business multiplier but will not receive a percentage reduction.

A ratepayer can only obtain relief on one property.

So for example, if you have several properties and none has a rateable value of more than £2,599 and the total value of all the properties is under £18,000, you need to identify the property for which you wish to claim relief. The remaining properties would be charged using the higher multiplier.

From 1 April 2007, applications for Small Business Rates Relief cover the period up to April 2011 provided certain defined circumstances do not change.

A condition of entitlement to SBRR is that the ratepayer must notify the billing authority of particular changes in circumstances that may affect their entitlement to the relief, within four weeks starting on the day after the change occured.

These changes are:

• increases in the rateable value of a property occupied by the ratepayer which is not in the area of the billing authority granting SBRR - these changes will have to be notified in writing; and
• the ratepayer coming into occupation of any property which is not mentioned in their application for relief - these changes will have to be notified through a fresh application for SBRR.

As notifying the billing authority of these changes, within four weeks starting on the day after the date of change, will be a condition of entitlement, failure to notify the authority will mean that the ratepayer would no longer be entitled to the relief. If the ratepayer notifies the authority after the four week period, the ratepayer would lose relief from the day after the date of change until the day on which the authority is notified in accordance with the amended 2004 Order.

Please contact the Business Rates team on 01228 817234 If you wish to apply for this relief.