Ceteris chief hits out at property tax reforms

A SERVICED office company in Clackmannanshire has hit out at Scottish Government reforms to empty property rates relief, dismissing it as a tax grab.

Margaret Mary Rafferty, managing director of Alloa-headquartered Ceteris has written to a number of MSPs dismissing the government’s claim that partially scrapping the relief will lead to fewer vacant properties on Scotland’s high streets. She said she was “outraged” by the insinuation that commercial landlords were benefiting in any way by not letting out their property.

Her company owns about 250,000 square foot across the Forth Valley – 40 per cent of which is industrial space and the remainder of which is office accommodation.

“We are already trying to keep people in properties by offering them better deals than we have ever offered before,” Rafferty said.

“There is no commercial benefit to us in not letting out property.”

The abolition of rates relief on empty commercial property would cost Ceteris, which turns over £3 million, some £84,000 annually.

Should occupancy continue to drop from its current level of 82 per cent that cost would go up.

Finance minister John Swinney announced in his September budget that empty property rates relief would be partially scrapped from April 2013. The Scottish Government, however, continued to defend the controversial policy last week as the best way “to encourage vacant premises back into use”.

A spokesman said: “Our plans for reform will reduce the cost of empty property relief by an estimated £36m over the three-year spending review period, and the level of relief on offer for empty properties will still be significantly higher than is currently available in England.”