Beyond Economic Repair

In Rating Law a property is valued and assumed as being in repair unless it can be demonstrated that the property is “Beyond Economic Repair”.

This means that the cost and level of works required to put a property back into repair or a lettable state would far outweigh the return in rent that the Landlord would receive.

This is a very complex area of Business Rates and there is no fixed formula for determining what level of disrepair should be classed as Beyond Economic Repair. Each case is reviewed on its own merits.

We have extensive experience in this field having advised commercial property owners throughout the country on their empty property liabilities.

We were recently instructed to review the Business Rates on a vacant commercial property in Bolton on behalf of a retained, property developer client.

The empty rates liability on the premises were in excess of £80,000 per year and stretched back to 1^st April 2017.

The building had been empty for a number of years and had fallen into significant disrepair.

In order to demonstrate this the Business Rates team liaised with Roger Hannah’s Building Surveying team to determine the scope and level of works required to put back into repair.

An inspection of the premises was carried out and a subsequent report prepared by our Building Surveying team which included detailed areas of disrepair, photographs and costings to put the premises back into repair.

The Business Rates team then put together a detailed Statement of Case and submitted the appeal to the Valuation Office Agency.

Roger Hannah were successful in demonstrating that the property was Beyond Economic Repair and should therefore be deleted from the Rating List with effect from 1^st April 2017.

This generated savings and backdated payments of empty rates in excess of £300,000 for a delighted client.

If you are the owner of vacant commercial property which has fallen into disrepair, then please contact our specialist Business Rates team for a free initial consultation.

Demetri Papaioannou at demetrip@roger-hannah.co.uk | 07718587354  or  Mark Keirl at markkeirl@roger-hannah.co.uk | 07764158233