Am am refurbishing a new practice slowly, it will qualify for small business rate reduction but the council state it does not qualify as it is undergoing major refurbishment. I am self employed I own the property and am in there every day building and talking to locals about the new project? Any advice as it is worth about 3 grand if I get the rate relief!

What is the square footage of the property ,if its rateable value is under 6k you can apply for small business rate relief so you will pay zero ,you need to apply for it though ,your council will not tell you openly

As in the post it will qualify but they won’t apply the relief until it is ‘occupied’ my question is what is occupied?

That was kind of the just of pushing that point,in my experience you want to receive the letter saying your exempt before receiving the letters saying your in arrears, if its exempt if you tell them its occupied your paying 0 anyway ours counted as the moment we took the keys ,so its not a problem, until you have notification saying you have no need to pay your jusr risking aggro and the unique ability of councils to be a law unto themselves

I’d ask the council as it’s them who’ll be making the decision?

tbh, if you’re operating the business from there (there’s a phone and it’s answered plus it’s the address on your website) then I’d assume it was ‘occupied’ as far as being used as a base for the business.

You could always bung a desk and some papers in one corner and invite someone from the council round?

We’ve had rate relief on our unit from the moment we moved into it, even though we were exclusively doing refurbishment for the first two weeks (and it’s still ongoing…)

I think “occupied” applies when the property is functioning for the business that the rate relief will be claimed on.

I think you can get 3 months exemption on empty property, may be longer in certain cases and depending on rateable value.