An agent has questioned why the sector cannot benefit from the business rate holiday announced in Wednesday’s Budget.
Chancellor Rishi Sunak announced that business rates will be scrapped for the next year for a variety of businesses with a rateable value of up to £51,000.
The businesses that will benefit include shops, cafes, night clubs, sports clubs, cinemas and hotels – but not estate agents.
Each business will save up to £25,000, Sunak said. He described the business rates holiday as an “exceptional step” that would benefit business if customers stay away during the coronavirus pandemic.
But estate agent James Hayman-Joyce, of Cotswolds firm Hayman-Joyce, says in a letter in today’s Telegraph: “Estate agency may not be the most popular business on the High Street but we are just as likely to be affected by, and our staff infected with, coronavirus as the retail shop next door.
“Why therefore do our ‘shops’ not qualify for the 100% business rate relief announced in the Budget?”
Hayman-Joyce, a member of the RICS, told EYE: “This is a real concern – estate agency offices (most of which look just like ‘shops’) are not in Use Class A1, which is retail, but in A2 – professional services.
“We did not receive the current year’s one-third business rates discount which retail shops benefited from and nor would we have received the 50% discount for 2020/21 announced last year.
“We will not get the 100% discount now announced, which seems inequitable as our businesses are just as likely to be affected by coronavirus as the other businesses in the high streets.”
While estate agents’ branches count as business, and not as retail, travel agents and funeral parlours are classified as shops, and stand to benefit from the business rates holiday.
Financial services also count as retail, as do betting shops.
A plea by Propertymark for estate agents’ branches to be classified as shops for business rate purposes was ignored by the Government.
Cut business rates for agents plea – they are ‘bedrock of the high street’
Sounds like discrimination to me! (Isn’t that illegal?)
Maybe all the agents should get together and fight this….
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You may have noticed that agents aren’t that good at getting together and fighting things (think RM).
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Seems ironic that funeral parlours benefit… that’s a growth business right now if ever there was one
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In my town the only ones in the town centre high st paying business rates next year will be:
4 banks
1 solicitor
5 Independent Estate Agents
1 Chain Estate Agent,
But none of the national business’ such as WH Smiths, Boots, Dorothy Perkins, Clarks etc etc
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Sorry my error, the big nationals WILL pay as their rateable value is likely to be over £51k pa, however on my street I will be the only one paying out of 39 shops and offices.
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This certainly seems unfair (and illogical).
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