Business (or Non Domestic) Rates

Liability for Business Rates

The Occupier of any business or non-domestic property is usually the person who is liable to pay the business or non-domestic rate charge levied upon it.

Agreements between Landlords and their Tenants are a matter between themselves and are not binding on a Local (or Billing) Authority. Should a tenant pay a rent that includes Rates, or in the event of any dispute between those parties, but the landlord does not pass those payments on to the Council, the Tenant will still be liable to pay and may then have to take action to recover the monies paid to the landlord against the landlord.

There are four ingredients of occupation

That there is actual occupation - someone is occupying the property
That the occupation is exclusive - someone has the use of the property that is not shared
That there is beneficial occupation - someone is willing to pay to enable the occupation exist
That the occupation is non-transient - refers to the time for which a property exists, e.g. must be there for more than 6 months.

There may be other factors to be looked at in certain instances and if the above areas are not clear and these will be investigated should the needs arise.

This page was last updated on 12/12/2007