Business Rates – VOA v Mazars LLP

A Court of Appeal has upheld the finding of the Upper Tribunal (Lands Chamber) that non-adjoining floors in the same building, occupied by the same business, can be treated as a single hereditament for rating purposes.

The three Lord Justices of Appeal unanimously confirmed in a Upper Tribunals decision based on a common sense assessment of the features of the case and rightly led to the conclusion that ‘non-contiguous’ (not adjoining) can constitute a single assessment.

In the decision reference was made to communication between floors, whether next to each other or not, being through the common parts of the building.

The judgement states that by applying this approach, separated floors in a single tower block can legitimately constitute a single hereditament.

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