EXPLANATORY NOTE
(This note is not part of the Regulations)
These Regulations amend Schedule 1A to the Non-Domestic Rating (Collection and Enforcement) (Local Lists) Regulations 1989 (“the 1989 Regulations”) (S.I.1989/1058). Schedule 1A was inserted by the Non-Domestic Rating (Collection and Enforcement) (Local Lists) (Amendment) (England) Regulations 2009 (“the 2009 Regulations”) (S.I.2009/204) to make special provision in relation to the collection of certain backdated liability to non-domestic rates.
The 1989 Regulations provide for a ratepayer’s annual rates liability to be discharged in instalments in many cases. However, where a demand notice – or rates bill – is issued after the end of the financial year to which it relates, the sum becomes payable in full. This can happen where a hereditament is shown on a rating list for the first time with effect from a date in that year following an amendment to the rating list which is not made until after the year has ended.
Schedule 1A provides that, subject to the criteria in paragraph 1 being satisfied, where a ratepayer is subject to backdated liability that has not already been discharged, the billing authority and the ratepayer can agree to reschedule payment of the liability that accrued in the period between the effective date of the amendment to the rating list and the date the amendment was actually made, over a period not exceeding eight years.
These Regulations amend paragraph 2 of Schedule 1A which, subject to the existing criteria being satisfied, allows a billing authority and a ratepayer to agree that backdated liability that has not already been discharged shall be paid over a period not exceeding eight years. The amendments give the ratepayer and the billing authority the power to agree that instalments of the payment of the backdated liability shall be deferred until on or after 1st April 2011, within the eight year period. The Regulations also amend paragraph 1 of Schedule 1A so that an agreement may apply to demand notices served as a consequence of one or more list alterations, if served in the financial year beginning on 1st April 2010.
The Regulations also insert a new paragraph 2A into Schedule 1A which allows a ratepayer and billing authority who have already entered into an agreement under paragraph 2 before the coming into force of the Regulations to enter into a new agreement under paragraph 2 which replaces the existing agreement. The new agreement may relate to any backdated liability which should have been discharged under the existing agreement but has not been so discharged but not to any backdated liability which has already been discharged under the existing agreement. It must, however, be entered into on or before 31st March 2011 and the period over which the instalments are to be discharged must not exceed a period of eight years from the day of the existing agreement.
A full regulatory impact assessment of the effect that this instrument will have on the costs of business and the public and voluntary sector is available from Business Rates Team, Department for Communities and Local Government, Zone 5/H2, Eland House, Bressenden Place, London, SW1E 5DU and is annexed to the Explanatory Memorandum which is available alongside the instrument on the OPSI website (www.opsi.gov.uk).