Court of Appeal shuts down “box shifting”: first appellate ruling on empty property rates schemes

The Court of Appeal’s judgement in City of London Corporation v 48th Street Holdings Ltd & Principled Offsite Logistics Ltd (POLL) EWCA Civ 970 is the first appellate ruling directly to address “box shifting” empty property rates schemes and overturns the earlier High Court approach. The case involved unoccupied office units where boxes of redundant or worthless contents were placed for six weeks solely to trigger a fresh three‑month empty property relief period in a cycle that could be repeated indefinitely, with the agreed facts confirming the arrangement had no commercial purpose other than rate mitigation.