Agency Business Rates Relief: Empty Property and Small Business Schemes

As you build your agency, financial pressure comes and business rates quietly drain thousands from your bottom line each year. Yet here's what catches us out when speaking to agency owners: the number who simply accept their rates bill as an unavoidable cost of doing business.

It doesn't have to be this way. Whether you're scaling up, consolidating into a smaller space, or navigating the messy bit between offices, relief schemes exist that can legitimately reduce what you pay. The trick is knowing they're there in the first place.

Empty Property Relief: The Three-Month Window

When you vacate a property, you get three months of 100% relief on business rates. For industrial properties, that stretches to six months. Sounds straightforward enough, except the timing can catch you out if you're not paying attention.

I've seen this play out badly with agencies moving offices. They overlap their old and new leases by a month "just to be safe" for the move, then discover they're paying full rates on both properties during that period. A bit of coordination between your lease end date and when you actually need access to the new space would have saved them several thousand pounds.

Here's where it gets trickier. Once you've claimed empty property relief on a building, you can't claim it again on that same property for twelve months. This matters if you're subletting space or considering a return to a previous office. The relief period doesn't reset just because you've left and come back.

Some landlords used to game this system by arranging brief "occupations" of empty properties to trigger fresh relief periods. HMRC cottoned on to this years ago. Now, if someone occupies a property for fewer than six weeks, it's treated as if it stayed empty. You need genuine, sustained occupation to reset the clock.

Small Business Rate Relief: Worth Checking Your Eligibility

If your main property has a rateable value below £15,000, you're potentially eligible for substantial relief. Properties rated at £12,000 or less get 100% relief, with tapered support available up to the threshold.

You can still claim this even with multiple properties, provided your main one sits below £15,000 and any additional spaces have rateable values under £2,899 each. This works well for agencies with a primary office and maybe a storage unit or small satellite workspace.

The total rateable value across everything you occupy can't exceed £20,000, though. This is where growth becomes a financial balancing act. Adding that extra office space might push you over the threshold, and suddenly you're losing relief worth thousands whilst taking on higher rent. Worth running the numbers before you sign anything.

One thing that surprises people: you actually have to apply for this relief. It's not automatic. Your local council handles applications, and they'll want evidence of your rateable values plus confirmation you meet the criteria. The process varies between councils—some make it straightforward, others less so.

You Can Challenge Your Assessment

If your business rates feel too high, you can challenge them. The grounds are fairly specific: either the rateable value is wrong, the property description in the rating list is inaccurate, or there's a factual error about the property itself.

Challenging the rateable value means building a case with evidence. You'll need comparable properties nearby—similar size, similar characteristics, lower rateable values. Commercial property agents can pull this data for you, though they'll charge for it. For smaller properties, the Valuation Office Agency's website lets you search comparable properties yourself.

The process follows three stages: Check, Challenge, Appeal. First, you verify your rateable value is what you think it is. Then you challenge it with your evidence. If the Valuation Office Agency rejects your challenge, you can escalate to an independent tribunal.

A word of warning: you won't see any rate reduction until your appeal succeeds, and these things drag on for twelve to eighteen months sometimes. You'll keep paying your current rates throughout, with any refund backdated to when you submitted your challenge. Budget accordingly.

Temporary Spaces and Short-Term Occupation

The rules around temporary occupation have tightened considerably. Previously, you could briefly occupy an empty property and reset the relief period. That loophole's been shut.

For agencies using short-term office space whilst hunting for something permanent, this creates a planning consideration. A two-month temporary arrangement won't help you access fresh empty property relief on your eventual permanent space if you've already burned through it on a previous property.

The occupation needs to be genuine as well. Popping in occasionally or storing some equipment there doesn't count. HMRC looks for actual business use: people turning up regularly, utilities being consumed, proper business activities happening.

Planning Around Rates

Strategic thinking about business rates needs to connect with your broader property planning. If you're growing towards a point where you'll lose small business rate relief, timing your expansion carefully can keep more money in your agency.

Serviced office space sometimes makes more financial sense than traditional leases for this reason. The rates are baked into the pricing, you benefit from the provider's economies of scale, and you often end up paying less per square foot than managing rates yourself.

Agencies with fluctuating space needs might find flexible workspace eliminates rates exposure during quieter periods entirely. You pay for what you occupy, nothing more.

Planning a downsize? Understanding the empty property relief timeline helps you time your move intelligently. Coordinate your notice period to align with relief periods, then shift to smaller premises where you can claim small business rate relief. The savings add up quickly.

Location matters more than you might think. Rateable values vary wildly between areas, even within the same city. For agencies operating remotely or with distributed teams, relocating to a lower-rated area could save serious money without affecting how you work.

Get Your Rates Right

Business rates relief can meaningfully reduce your overhead costs, but the complexity of the schemes means plenty of agencies leave money on the table. Understanding how empty property relief, small business schemes, and the appeals process interact requires getting into the detail.

At Sidekick, we help agency owners navigate these reliefs alongside broader financial planning. We'll review where you stand with rates, identify opportunities for relief, and make sure your property strategy aligns with your financial goals.

Book a call with us to discuss your specific situation and find out what you could be saving.

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