ABSTRACT
This chapter concerns the concept of the Rateable Occupier, the person who is going to have to pay the tax. Rating is a tax on occupation not ownership. The approach of treating empty property rating as ‘add on’ is in line with both the historical development of rating and statutory scheme which provides separately for the rating of empty property. Rates are levied on the basis of the value of the occupation of the hereditament to the occupier. Legal possession, the legal right to occupy, is not enough to satisfy the rating test of actual occupation. The occupation of the property need not necessarily be exclusive in the sense that it is taken to mean that it excludes all others, but rather it is exclusive for a particular purpose. Actual occupation in its simplest form can mean the physical presence of the occupier on the land, for example the occupier of a shop, office or factory.
