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A new rate relief scheme, Small Business Rate Relief (SBRR), has been introduced from 1 April 2005 to help small businesses.
To qualify for Small Business Rate Relief (SBRR) in London a business must occupy either:
a) one property with a rateable value under £21,500, or
b) one main property and other additional properties with an aggregate value of £21,500, where each of the additional properties have a rateable value of less than £2,200 (an example of an additional property might be a car space).
If a business has more than one property as described in b), SBRR will only apply to the main property.
To obtain SBRR, businesses must apply in writing to the Council and must meet the qualifying requirements on the 1 April of that year. If a business receiving SBRR ceases to meet the qualifying requirements, SBRR will cease from the date the requirements are no longer met.
Applications for SBRR must be made no later than 30 September in the year following the financial year to which the application relates. The only exception to this is where, following an alteration to the rating list, a business qualifies for SBRR under a) or b). In this situation, the business has six months to make an application starting on the date when the change to the rating list is notified by the Valuation Office Agency to the Council.
You can make an application for SBRR by downloading this application form Application for Small Business Rate Relief form [PDF file] (file size 66Kb).
Small Business Rate Relief has two elements:
1) A business with a qualifying property that has a rateable value of less than £5,000 will benefit from a reduction in rate liability of 50 per cent. This relief will decrease on a sliding scale of approximately 1 per cent for every £100 of rateable value below £10,000.
2) A business with a qualifying property that has a rateable value of £10,000 to £21,499 will benefit by having its rates bill calculated using the lower small business rate multiplier of 45.8 pence instead of the standard business rate multiplier of 46.2 pence.
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