Cobbler's Bairns

Spouting forth about all things property has its drawbacks. Sometimes the time that it takes to put out all the content, you are letting other things go in the background. Thumbing through the Sunday Times at the weekend, I was drawn to a story on holiday lets. Nothing unusual in that. Every six week or so they trawl out a story about holiday lets and the do's and don'ts of the holiday let game. But this time it forced me into action.

I have a property in Machrihanish that we rent out. I had always been of the impression that I had to pay Council Tax. This was a bug bear of mine and whilst the council used to knock off 10% from the total, I always felt hard done by given the fact that whilst I was using the same services as everyone else, I was not using them with the frequency of those that lived full time in the area. I had heard about paying business rates but thought that this was some dodgy wheeze dreamt up by those who advise on buying a private jet in a tax wrapper on the Isle of Man. I could not be further from the truth.

There it was front and centre in the article:-

"Holiday lets are free Council Tax, but incur business rates: you can claim relief of up to 10%

Further research has led me to the HMRC web site and the telephone number of the Assessor for the area. This is the first call that I am going to make this morning.