Business rates v. council tax (and a bit of a planning enquiry!)

emv

We're looking at running a residential training centre in a building which has C2 use as a care home (which falls into the same planning classification as a training centre). But we plan to use some of the building as our home (checking this out with the planners at the moment). So presumably if we can do this (keep the C2 classification) then some of the building will be liable for council tax & some for business rates depending on which space is used exclusively for what. Does the VOA visit & decide this?

Does it make any more sense to apply for a change of use to residential and then pay council tax on the majority of the building then business rates on the rest?

As it's been a care home, no rates have been payable so far but it looks like the rateable value of the building will be high, the VOA says the are is 844m2 and the rate applies is £31/m2 so the rateable value is £26,000 (which annoyingly makes the rates payable over £12,000 which disqualifies the building from small business rate relief, I think unless we can get rural rates relief. Over time, parts of the building have been classed as residential & been rated for council tax.

Em

CIS

Does the VOA visit & decide this?

They will apportion and value/band the parts of the property as appropriate - the setup you will have would be similar to a pub with an attached flat where the pub is rateable for business rates and the flat for council tax.