business rates....................

[coralwings]

can anyone explain to me ((blonde)) how your business rates are assessed?? Is it a percentage of what income you are expected to receive?? can you appeal??

thanx in advance!! :D

[devonlass]

Bit more complicated than this,but basically the amount is determined by your local council based on the rateable value of the property you run your business from.They then charge a percentage of that amount.

Not so much to do with what you actually earn,is more about the the premises and what they consider it is worth in a commercial sense.

Although what you earn can come into it for the reliefs.If you earn less than £15000 a year can claim small business rate relief,which will reduce your rates by around 50%.

There is really no way of telling you how much it will be as will depend on how your council determines the rateable value of the property you will be using for your business.Can ring them up and ask they are reasonably helpful.

[eml]

Just a couple of points.

The value is decided by HMCE valuation office not the local council. The local council only collect the amount based on their percentage charge.

What you actually do with the property has no relevence, as far as the council is concerned it is 'non domestic rate' not 'business rate' and will be charged is say you had an indoor school for private use even if you didn't let it out

Small business relief is based on the rateable value not what you actually earn. To appeal you need to show reasons why the rate should be reduced. We had a sizeable reduction when the bypass was built around our land as not only was it impossible to hack out, hazardous to exit with lorry but also the water table was so altered that many of the stables were unusable in wet weather due to flooding.

There is a valuation guide appendix for stables which I used in my appeal, if you are interested I will look it up for you.

[coralwings]

eml - thanx so much for the offer of help - have pm'd you :D xx

[Wally]

The chap who came to measure ours was very good, he knocked off the couple of feet behind the boards that was not in use.

We used to have to pay full whack, but now we get small business releif. We also maintain that part of it is uesed for agricultural purposes, for running sheep through/sorting etc. so he was good enough not to include that bit too.