Building discription for utility payments

mmmmikey

As far as the classification is concerned, if you're charging people to visit the building you are a commercial user, regardless of whether you are making a profit or loss, how you are funding the enterprise or what you are doing with any surplus income. The fact that you are choosing to donate the proceeds to charity (which is great btw and something I'm sure that everyone here applauds) is a separate matter. So I don't think you can avoid the business/commercial classification. It sounds harsh and in your circumstances hardly seems fair but unfortunately that's the way I believe it is :-(

EDIT: a possible way round this is that instead of charging people to visit the building you encourage them to make donations directly to whatever charity you choose. You can suggest a minimum amount but make it purely optional. At that point running the building is a hobby and you could possibly make the argument that the use is now domestic. That of course leaves you needing to recover any costs, but if they are only small and you have regular donors then you might be able to come to an informal arrangement whereby instead of paying you to visit they chip in and help cover the costs. This may be an infringement of tax laws (I'm not sure) and difficult to formalise legally but if it's on a small scale possibly the kind of thing the relevant authorities would turn a blind eye to?

Qyburn

maciom said:

I am in Scotland. The building we own and use, is classified as a business because it is not used as a residential/private property. However, “we” are not a business, we don’t have an annual turnover and rely on monthly donations from members and visitors, to cover running costs. With any surplus received going to charity. 

Is your actual organisation registered as a charity? The recently introduced "SCIO" is quite light on formalities.

jennifernil

We are also in Scotland, not that I think where you or we are makes a difference, OP.

We are a committee that run our local Girl Guide hall on behalf of the Guides who use it.  They are a registered charity.

We pay no rates or water charges, having applied to our Council  for relief.  It does however cost about £8000 per annum to keep the building going, which is covered by the Guides that meet there paying so much per child, a weekly dancing class that pay an hourly rate, and the occasional birthday party, also an hourly rate.  We also run a fund raising coffee morning every year.  Added together, the income covers the running costs and there is usually a small surplus.

Way back, about 25 years ago at least, we were on a domestic tariff as we were low users, but were then switched to a commercial tariff which was more expensive.  If a premises is not a domestic property, I cannot see that you could ask for a domestic tariff.

Every so often, our contract ends, after 1-3 years, and I have to find the best new deal.  At present we are on a 1 year fix with Octopus, our standing charges for gas and electricity total around 75p per day, which is about 18p per day less than I am paying at home, also with Octopus!

I would say the only thing you can do is to find a better tariff as soon as possible, it is easy to switch at the  end of your contract.  

Does the income from the use of the building cover the cost of running the building?  

Robin9

The OP hasn't been back to us so we don't know what he is actually paying or when his contract ends.

As a small business user (a Church Hall) rather like @jennifernil,  I am paying about 23p plus £3 / day SC.  If the OP was to go to Octopus as above at 30p  then that would pay him to do so only if he was using about 45 kWh/day - 1800 kWh a year  (I use 4 x that, having invested heavily in LED )

jennifernil

£3 per day standing charge?   That is a lot!  

For electricity we pay 59.07p per day and for gas 14.19p. Electricity units are 25.18p, gas is 7.03p.  We use less than 3300 kWh of electricity annually.

We are planning to replace all our lights, currently fluorescent, with LEDs later this year, there is a 75% grant available to us, and the other 25% will be an interest free loan over 8 years.

Robin9

LED's cut our consumption from 11,000 to 7,000 kWh. Got 100% Community Lottery Grant.