The Scottish Government has passed an emergency Bill to amend existing legislation. The new legislation will correct an error in law for owners of unoccupied properties’ liability to pay non-domestic rates has been published.
The intention of the Bill is to enable the charging of non-domestic rates on the owners of unoccupied non-domestic property, subject to any reliefs that local authorities may choose to put in place, with retrospective effect, from 1 April 2023. It corrects a recently identified error in amendments made by the Non-Domestic Rates (Scotland) Act 2020 to devolve empty property relief and which mean there has been no valid legal basis to levy non-domestic rates on the owners of empty properties since 1 April 2023.
The Bill will enable the non-domestic rates system to continue to operate in the way it has been universally understood and operating in practice since 1 April 2023.
Links to the Bill and the accompanying Documents can be found here:
