Non-Domestic Rate quibble

frank_collins

Hi, we own a large barn, 750sq ft, on our property for which we are being billed for business rates [or non domestic rates] even though it's not being used for business and only contains a ping pong table, a few books and some musical equipment.

A valuation officer arrived in the summer, took a photo, and reported back to his boss who said he couldn't take it off the business rates list as it contained articles of "recreational use" rather than "domestic use".

This to me seems a very minor [and expensive] difference in the definition of the articles in our barn.

We're supposed to have had a tribunal but our property it is in a "holding programme" until April 2010.

On looking at our planning file I can see that the previous owner had conditional planning permission to change the outbuilding from storage of materials to private workshop and other private purposes ancillary to the dwelling in 1994 but never started the work.

Does anyone know how we should proceed, what we should say and what result we should aim for.

Thanks