Rates (Northern Ireland) Order 1977

General provisions as to liability and assessment to rate N.I.

19.—(1) The following general provisions shall have effect with respect to the assessment of persons to, and their liability on account of, a rate in respect of any hereditament for any year.

(2) A person who is in occupation of the hereditament for part only of the year shall, subject to the provisions of this Article, be liable to be charged with such part only of the total amount of the rate as bears to that amount the same proportion as the number of days during which he is in occupation bears to the total number of days in the year.

(3) A person who is in occupation of the hereditament for any part of the year may be assessed to the rate in accordance with the provisions of paragraph (2) notwithstanding that he ceased to be in occupation before the rate was made.

(4) A person who is in occupation of the hereditament at any time after the rate is made may be assessed to and shall in the first instance be liable to pay—

(a) if he was in occupation at the beginning of the year, the whole of the amount charged in respect of the hereditament; or

(b) if he came into occupation subsequently, a proportion of that amount calculated on the basis that he will remain in occupation until the end of the year,

but shall, if he goes out of occupation before the end of the year, be entitled to recover from the Department any sums paid by him in excess of the amount properly chargeable against him in accordance with the provisions of paragraph (2)[F1 and paragraph 3(2) of Schedule 8A], except that—

(i) no allowance shall be made for a period of less than seven days;

(ii) F2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

(iii) a person shall not be entitled to recover any such sum in so far as he has previously recovered it from an incoming occupier.

(5) Where the name of any person liable to be rated as occupier of any hereditament is not known to the Department, it shall be sufficient to assess him to the rate by the description of the “occupier” of the hereditament (naming it) in respect of which the assessment is made, without further name or description.

F1 2004 NI 4

F2 Art. 19(4)(ii) repealed (1.4.2007) by Rates (Amendment) (Northern Ireland) Order 2006 (S.I. 2006/2954 (N.I. 18)), arts. 1(3), 39, 41, Sch. 2 para. 12, Sch. 3; S.R. 2006/464, art. 2(4)