News

2009-05-05 : New empty rates campaign launched!

A new petition has been launched on the No 10 website this week to campaign against empty rates.

The petition, launched by David Flood, managing director of Rateable Value, has been set up to ask the government to extend the void period before a property owner has to pay empty rates to 12 months.

Since the empty rates laws changed in 1 April last year, industrial properties have a six month holiday before they have to pay rates, and offices and shops have just three months.

The tax has done damage across the industry and the government ignored the opportunity to help the property sector with any changes in last week's budget.

It argues the change is needed because the "removal of Empty Property Relief (EPR) is doing great harm to all sectors of the commercial property industry in this country".  Buildings are being demolished and property companies are being placed in financial difficulties. Many property organisations are having difficulty staying within their banking covenants, which in turn is putting pressure on the banking sector, as loans become toxic.

It states:

"The government should help all types of property owners across the sector especially, in view of the deepening recession, by extending the length of the Empty Rates Void Period to 12 months."

Four previous petitions have been launched on the Number 10 website calling for last April's reform to be scrapped, attracting between them a total of 8,867 signatures.

Go to http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/extendEPRvoid/