Pre-legislative scrutiny of the draft Non-Domestic Rating (Property in Common Occupation) Bill inquiry

The Committee has published a report following its pre-legislative scrutiny of the draft Non-Domestic Rating (Property in Common Occupation) Bill. The legislation would reinstate the method by which business rates in multi-occupied properties were calculated by the Valuation Office Agency (VOA) prior to a ruling by the Supreme Court in 2015. Businesses occupying two adjoining floors of a building or two rooms separated by a wall only, previously received just one rates bill, but since the ruling, separate units of property in a shared building are treated individually for ratings purposes Those businesses would now be allowed to apply for reassessment of rates retrospectively back to 2010, and the Committee has found that the financial impact on local authorities of the move remains unclear.