Rating (Empty Properties) Act 2007

Rating (Empty Properties) Act 2007

2007 CHAPTER 9

Commentary on Sections

Section 2 and Schedules 1 and 2: Consequential provisions

15. Section 2 introduces Schedules 1 and 2 to the Act which contain consequential provisions and repeals respectively.

16. Paragraph 1 of Schedule 1 updates the provisions in the 1988 Act dealing with rate liability for partially occupied property. A reduction in the occupier's rates bill where part of their property is unoccupied will now be available firstly, if the property is one which, if it were completely empty, the owner would not be liable to the unoccupied rate or the property would be zero rated; or secondly, if the Secretary of State has exercised her new power in section 45(4A) to make an order reducing the unoccupied property rate below 100% of the basic rate for occupiers. In other cases, occupiers whose property is partially unoccupied will be liable to the occupied rate in the usual way; so, for example, an occupier who benefited from small business rate relief would continue to benefit from it.

17. Paragraph 2 of Schedule 1 makes amendments consequential on the new zero unoccupied rate for charities and CASCs to the existing provisions of the 1988 Act which provide for discretionary rate relief; since unoccupied properties owned by charities and CASCs are to be zero rated, new subsection (10) of section 47 of the 1988 Act provides that discretionary rate relief is not applicable to such properties.

18. Paragraph 3 of Schedule 1 makes consequential changes to the provisions of the 1988 Act for transitional relief in England and Wales.

19. Paragraph 4(1) of Schedule 1 inserts new section 66A into the 1988 Act. This new section empowers the Secretary of State and the Welsh Ministers to make regulations to deal with steps that owners might take (or omit to take) in an attempt to avoid unoccupied rates through causing or allowing the state of their property to change. Such regulations may provide that the state of any property forming part of an unoccupied hereditament shall be deemed not to have changed since before any prescribed event or as the result of an act or omission by or on behalf of a prescribed person.

20. Subsection (2) of new section 66A specifies that these regulations may make provision for the circumstances in which and length of time for which the change of the state of property may be disregarded.

21. Subsections (3) to (5) of the new section set out additional matters which may be included in regulations. These are provisions prescribing assumptions in relation to changes in the state of property in comparison with an earlier time; provisions relating to the person by whom acts may be treated as done; and provisions that the regulations apply to omissions as well as acts.

22. Subsection (6) of the new section provides for the regulations to be made by the Secretary of State in relation to England and by the Welsh Ministers in relation to Wales.

23. Paragraph 4(2) of Schedule 1 provides, by amending section 143 of the 1988 Act, for regulations under new section 66A to be subject to the affirmative resolution procedure.

24. Paragraph 5 of Schedule 1 makes consequential changes to the interpretation provisions in section 67 of the 1988 Act.

25. Paragraph 6 of Schedule 1 removes the deadline of 31st December 2007 by which regulations under paragraph 4(6) of Schedule 8 to the 1988 Act for the financial year 2008/09 must come into force. These regulations specify the annual value of various financial and economic factors in the formula used by local authorities to calculate the amount of business rates they will pay into the national non-domestic rating pool in the next financial year.

26. Paragraph 7 of Schedule 1 makes a consequential amendment to the National Heritage Act 1980 so that the provisions of new section 45A of the 1988 Act apply to the Trustees of the National Heritage Memorial Fund.

27. Paragraph 8 of Schedule 1 confers a power to make amendments to legislation as a consequence of the Act, by order. Paragraph 8(2) specifies that the power covers legislation which predates the Act and legislation which is passed in the same session as it. Paragraph 8(4) specifies that this power is exercisable by the Secretary of State in relation to England and by the Welsh Ministers in relation to Wales. Paragraph 8(5) provides that orders amending primary legislation are to be subject to the affirmative resolution procedure; all other orders made under the paragraph are to be subject to the negative resolution procedure (paragraph 8(6)).

28. Schedule 2 repeals the existing provisions of the 1988 Act which provide for unoccupied rates for charities and CASCs and those which extend the power of billing authorities to give discretionary relief from unoccupied rates to charities and CASCs.