Court of Appeal clarifies how eligibility for charity business rates relief is assessed where a charity owns a portfolio of commercial properties

The case

The Court of Appeal has rejected an appeal by the London Borough of Merton challenging Nuffield Health’s eligibility for business rates relief over a former Virgin Active Gym acquired by Nuffield Health in August 2016.

Nuffield Health is a company limited by guarantee and a registered charity. Their charitable objects are “to advance, promote and maintain health and healthcare of all descriptions and to prevent, relieve and cure sickness and ill health of every kind, all for the public benefit”. They own a large portfolio of properties comprised of 31 hospitals, 112 fitness and wellbeing centres and five medical centres, and Nuffield Health operate over 200 gyms and health assessment facilities in workplaces across the United Kingdom. The primary source of revenue for Nuffield Health is from the fees it charges for its exclusive services.

The London Borough of Merton (LBM) submitted that section 43(6) of the Local Government Finance Act 1988 should be interpreted to require an applicant to show “that the Premises were used for the public benefit as an aspect of showing that they were used wholly or mainly for charitable purposes. And that a charity has to show that its use of a particular property is for the public benefit.” Lord Justice Peter Jackson was surprised that “such a fundamental issue of principle has not arisen before”, and described LBM’s argument as “curiously unprecedented”.

The judgment

The Court ultimately decided that when interpreting the legislation which provides the mandatory relief for charities from business rates and applies where “the ratepayer is a charity or trustees of a charity and the hereditament is wholly or mainly used for charitable purposes (whether of that charity or of that and other charities)”, Parliament’s intention was not that the question of public benefit should be assessed separately for each site on which a charity carries out its charitable activity.

Lord Justice Peter Jackson concluded by cautioning that even though Nuffield Health had succeeded under the rating legislation, if the situation at the premises were replicated across all its properties, it may face scrutiny from the Charity Commission, and then potentially the courts.

The judgment for Nuffield Health v London Borough of Merton [2021] EWCA Civ 826 (28 May 2021) Richards, Jackson and Nugee LJJ can be found here.

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