Where the outgoing tenant is no longer in occupation, but their furniture remains on the premises, can a landlord claim empty property relief for rating purposes?

Occupied hereditaments—liability

An occupier of the whole or part of a hereditament is liable to pay business rates.

Rateable occupation in relation to non-domestic property is determined in accordance with rules explained and developed by extensive case law. These rules, which applied under the General Rate Act 1967 (GRA 1967) (now repealed), have been preserved under the Local Government Finance Act 1988 (LGFA 1988), but any express statutory rules contained in GRA 1967 must be ignored.

The courts have accepted that there are four necessary ingredients in rateable occupation:

1. •

   there must be actual occupation

2. •

   the occupation must be exclusive for the particular purposes of the possessor

3. •

   the possession must be of some value or benefit to the possessor, and

4. •

   the possession must not be for too transient a period

These