Regulation 2 of these Regulations brings section 19 (unoccupied properties) of the Non-Domestic Rates (Scotland) Act 2020 (“the Act”) into force on 1 April 2023.

Regulation 3 makes amendments to the Non-Domestic Rates (Scotland) Act 2020 (Commencement No. 2, Transitional and Saving Provisions) Regulations 2020 (“the 2020 Regulations”). It substitutes the date on which sections 10 (proposals to alter, and appeals against, valuation roll), 11 (proposals and appeals: consequential modifications) and 12 (restriction on making complaints) of the Act come into force. Section 10 will come into force, insofar as it is not already in force, on 1 January 2023, instead of on 1 April 2022. Sections 11 and 12 will similarly come into force on 1 January 2023, instead of on 1 April 2022. Further, the Regulations make a consequential amendment to the saving provision in regulation 3 of the 2020 Regulations, so that the restriction on the making of complaints by proprietors, tenants and occupiers will have no effect in relation to complaints made before 1 January 2023, rather than those made before 1 April 2022.

Regulation 4 is a saving provision. Section 19 of the Act repeals section 24 and partially repeals sections 24A, 24B and paragraph 2 of schedule 3 of the Local Government (Scotland) Act 1966. The Non-Domestic Rating (Unoccupied Property) (Scotland) Regulations 2018 (“the 2018 Regulations”) are made in exercise of powers in sections 24, 24A and 24B of that Act. The saving provision preserves the operation of the 2018 Regulations, in so far as they relate to the period between the date of their coming into force and 31 March 2023.

The Bill for the Act received Royal Assent on 11 March 2020. The following sections of the Act came into force on the following day: sections 1, 26(1) to (4), 29(1)(a), 29(3) (insofar as it relates to section 29(1)(a)), 30(1) to (7) and (12) to (14), 31 and 42 to 45.