By Shaylesh Patel, Founder and CEO of ASTOP.
As we look out over 2026, one uncomfortable truth is becoming harder to ignore. Business rates are no longer just a blunt instrument of taxation.
They have evolved into a complex system that increasingly rewards scale, legal and illegal firepower, and technical expertise, while quietly sidelining those in the middle without the resources to navigate it, nor small enough to be regarded as worthy of support.
Business rates remain attractive to governments because they are relatively easy to collect and politically less sensitive than personal taxes. But over time, layers of reliefs, exemptions, supplements, and transitional mechanisms have turned what should be a simple charge on property into a maze. Complexity has not reduced the overall burden now should that be expected.
Large corporations can absorb this complexity. They employ in house tax teams, retain specialist advisers, and challenge valuations or liabilities as a matter of routine. For them, uncertainty becomes manageable and sometimes even advantageous. Those with the more aggressive advisers and lawyers exploit explicit gaps in written and case law, roll out the fact that they took advice and it was “ok” as their shield against difficult questions about morality and how the whole property industry’s reputation is impacted.
Meanwhile, smaller landlords, independent occupiers, and community rooted businesses face the same rules but without the same tools. The result is not a level playing field, but a system that quietly favours those already best resourced.
Nowhere is this more visible than in hospitality and independent retail. Pubs, cafés, and small operators are not just dealing with business rates in isolation. They are absorbing higher staffing costs, energy prices, insurance, and national insurance changes at the same time as reliefs are scaled back. For many, rates are not an abstract policy issue but a tipping point. Hospitality voices have been clear that rateable values linked to trading potential, rather than lived trading reality, can land as a bill that simply cannot be carried. Independent retailers tell a similar story, where modest premises attract liabilities that bear little resemblance to profit or resilience.
These businesses do not have the luxury of buffers offered by diversification at group level or teams dedicated to managing tax exposure. They pay what is demanded, cut costs elsewhere, or call it a day permanently. Meanwhile, complexity opens the door to an entirely different response higher up the food chain.
This is where the ethics gap emerges. When rules are opaque and sums are large, advisers appear with products designed not to solve problems, but to exploit grey areas. We have now seen a pattern of mitigation that is technically argued, but practically hollow.
One of the most controversial recent examples is the use of religious exemption claims in properties that show little or no genuine public worship, including boarded up pubs in disrepair and other empty units suddenly being designated as places of worship. Investigations have described how these arrangements are marketed to landlords as a rates saving device, rather than a community service and often not even accessible to the pastor to see the space, let alone allow a floco to congregate at Christmas.
Then there is the agricultural angle, where vacant shops and offices are presented as “snail farms” to seek exemption intended for legitimate agricultural use. Westminster City Council has publicly described finding snail crates in London offices and has moved to tackle what it sees as a rates avoidance racket. Similar disputes have been reported elsewhere, including challenges to schemes presented as heliculture businesses. Sadly councils are having to spend millions themselves on these legal fees and left helpless when the fake farm simply calls in the liquidator and declares it has no money to pay the rates or reimburse the legal fees of the council.
And there is the practice widely referred to as “box shifting”, where minimal, short term occupation is engineered simply to reset empty property relief cycles. This behaviour is well recognised by local authorities, and it has been discussed explicitly in government analysis on avoidance and evasion in the business rates system.
The consequences are increasingly visible. Buildings that are technically occupied but practically useless. Spaces that exist on paper while offering no benefit to the surrounding area. Councils dragged into disputes with landlords not because anyone believes the outcome improves places, but because the system encourages confrontation. Once again, only agents and lawyers reliably win. This is especially when councils with empty property in other council’s areas do this or when a reputable government agency like the NHS has its hand held by a supposedly reputable large rating firm, to shift boxes and avoid millions in empty rates to cash-strapped councils like Harlow. The net result – a government agency wins and loses – but lawyers and rates adviser always win, at the cost of the property sector’s reputation.
For hospitality operators and SMEs watching from the sidelines, this breeds understandable cynicism. They see a system that is unforgiving at the sharp end, but endlessly negotiable for those with scale and advisers. That perception matters. Trust in the fairness of the system is eroded not just by high bills, but by the sense that rules are applied differently depending on who you are and how willing you are manipulate your moral compass.
Looking ahead to 2026, this imbalance is unsustainable. Councils remain under severe financial pressure. Scrutiny of corporate behaviour is increasing, not decreasing. Aggressive mitigation schemes invite challenge, policy tightening, and reputational fallout. At the same time, the voices of hospitality and small business are growing louder, not for special treatment, but for proportionality and realism.
In this environment, ethical mitigation is no longer a theoretical ideal. It is a practical form of risk management. Choosing solutions that deliver genuine, visible community benefit reduces legal uncertainty, reputational exposure, and the likelihood of future clampdowns. It also restores purpose to empty buildings, which are otherwise a daily reminder of decline in towns and high streets already under strain.
There is a choice here. Landlords and decision makers can continue to chase ever more inventive interpretations of exemptions, relying on complexity and deep pockets, knowing that the rules will change again and public patience is thin. Or they can take a leadership position, recognising that long term value lies in stewardship rather than extraction.
At ASTOP, we partner with ethical commercial landlords and local authorities to put empty retail, office and other commercial spaces into use by charities and community groups, significantly reducing the financial burden of business rates for property owners. We act as a rates mitigator by arranging legal, ethical tenancy or licence agreements that qualify for charitable business rates relief, lowering the rates liability on otherwise vacant properties and sharing savings with landlords. In doing so, ASTOP helps charities access rent-free or low-cost space while bringing vacant premises back into community use and reducing empty property tax costs for owners.
Ethical mitigation is not about paying more tax for its own sake. It is about aligning commercial reality with social responsibility and recognising that complexity should not be a substitute for conscience. As the system evolves towards 2026 and beyond, those who rely solely on cleverness may find themselves increasingly exposed. Those who invest in credibility, transparency, and genuine use will be far more resilient.
In a world where the rules are unlikely to get simpler, leadership remains the one advantage that cannot be outsourced.
