News

2009-06-25 : BROWN SAYS EMPTY RATES ARE "RIGHT FOR THE LONG TERM"

According to Property Week Magazine.........Prime minister Gordon Brown has dashed industry hopes of a helping hand by dismissing a widely supported British Property Federation petition for the reinstatement of empty rates relief.

A statement from the prime minister's office this week said the tax was acting as ‘an incentive for the reuse of property' and the government had ‘no long-term plans to reverse the changes to empty property rate relief introduced from 1 April 2008'.

Brown was responding to an online petition lodged by the BPF on the Number 10 website, which called for the restoration of business rate relief for empty properties to the levels prior to 1 April 2008.

The petition has 5,708 signatories.

However, Brown said that it would not be possible to restore empty rate relief as it would cost the government £950m.

Brown said: ‘The government decision to introduce from 1 April 2008 the reforms to empty property rate relief, charging 100% rates beyond the initial rate-free periods when properties stand empty, is right for the long term. It increases the incentive to relet and reuse empty property.

 ‘Reintroducing the previous relief from rates for all empty property would cost £950m and would remove the incentive to reuse commercial property.'

The BPF, which has run a long campaign with Property Week against the tax, said the statement from Brown was ‘highly misleading' and ‘spin of epic proportions'.

Liz Peace, BPF chief executive, said: ‘In a recession where the property industry has been so badly hit, taxing owners without tenants and claiming it will conjure up tenants and encourage property to be relet is nonsense. Why would any landlord keep a property empty in a falling market? Businesses are failing daily, so where does the prime minister expect these tenants to come from?'

Brown's office said he had listened to concerns and had restored empty property rate relief for properties with rateable values of up to £15,000, providing relief for up to 70% of all rateable properties.

This represents around £185m in tax that would have been paid by property owners with property of a rateable value of less than £15,000.