The Act Part 2 – Administration and enforcement of non-domestic rates Section 19 – Unoccupied properties
91.Section 24 of the Local Government (Scotland) Act 1966 (“the 1966 Act”) provides a default rule that non-domestic rates are not payable in respect of unoccupied lands and heritages (although it also provides that the Scottish Ministers may by regulations prescribe classes of unoccupied lands and heritages in respect of which a specified proportion (of between 50% and 90%) of the rates that would be due if the lands and heritages were occupied is payable).
92.Section 24A of the 1966 Act makes provision in relation to how lands and heritages that are partly unoccupied for a short time are treated for rating purposes. In summary, a rating authority can request the assessor to apportion the rateable value between the occupied part of the lands and heritages and the unoccupied part (subsection (1)). The rates payable are then calculated with reference to the rateable value of the occupied part only, reducing the rates payable (subsection (2)). But the Scottish Ministers can again prescribe classes of lands and heritages in respect of which this default rule does not apply (with a specified proportion of between 50% and 90% of the rateable value of the unoccupied part continuing to be taken account of in determining the rates payable).
93.Section 24B of the 1966 Act provides for certain lands and heritages to be treated as unoccupied for the purposes of sections 24 and 24A, while section 25 and schedule 3 make provision as to the treatment of newly erected and altered buildings which are not yet occupied for the purposes of section 24.
94.Subsection (2) of section 19 repeals section 24 of the 1966 Act. The default position following commencement of section 19(23) will therefore be that non-domestic rates are payable in respect of unoccupied lands and heritages. Local authorities have power to offer non-domestic rates relief in respect of unoccupied lands and heritages under section 3A of the 1962 Act (schemes for reduction and remission of rates), should any authority wish to do so. The Scottish Ministers could also, if they wished, provide for relief for unoccupied lands and heritages under section 153 of the Local Government etc. (Scotland) Act 1994.(24)
95.Subsection (3) repeals subsection (4) of section 24A of the 1966 Act (and makes other changes to the section which are consequential on this). This removes the power for Scottish Ministers to specify that a proportion of the rateable value of classes of lands and heritages which are unoccupied for a short time should continue to be taken into account in determining the amount of rates payable. The rules set out in subsections (1) and (2) of section 24A continue to apply.
96.Subsection (4) to (7) make minor changes to sections 24B and 25 and schedule 3 of the 1966 Act which are consequential on the repeal of section 24.