‘Our cattery is hardly a hotel’

Keith Tydeman and a guest of Le Courtil Griffin Cattery, which has been classed as a hotel under the new property tax system.
A CATTERY is challenging its classification as a hotel under the new Tax on Real Property system.
Verity and Tom Bacon have owned Le Courtil Griffin Cattery in St Sampson’s for three years. Since the changes to the property rating system, the operation has suffered a rise in taxation after being classed as a hostelry.
Mrs Bacon’s father, Keith Tydeman, went before the TRP appeals tribunal to dispute the matter. ‘We are only a small family business,’ he said. ‘We are no high-flying hotel or financial business.’
The cattery was first classed as a general business because it did not fall into any of the other categories. When that was challenged, the Cadastre reassessed it as a hostelry, meaning it was considered to be a building that houses tourists.
‘Our cats don’t come in by Condor,’ said Mr Tydeman. ‘We are a cat-orientated business, not a human-orientated one. We have just a few timber buildings with some mesh. We are basic. We are not on the scale of a hotel or guest house.’
The appeal tribunal was chaired by John Weir. Sheelagh Evans and Martin Johnson were on the panel. Its decision will be delivered in mid-January (from thisisguernsey)

Once again the small business being hit by States nobs being prats, Its seems that the days of small Guernsey business are numbered with decisions like these..

i read this story in the press and thought it must be a joke.for goodness sake will this government ever get things right.they are robbing the working people of this island to pay for 0/10 they should be ashamed of themselves.

Why did they challenge the 'General Business' grading ? That seems a fair description. They seem to have bought the situation upon themselves.

wonder if the pussies get brekkie in bed

We will have to wait until mid January to see what outcome the panel come up with . It does seem a bit stupid but as i have said before dealing with these departments is getting virtually impossible ,they do not listen to reason anymore.

Looks like some think April fools has been brought forward 4 months??

The only thing that matters is what are they expected to pay not how they are classified.

I cant see the bill being huge, most hotels saw a rise of 300-500% and most other businesses saw a 300% rise.

One problem is on the old system many places were not charged anything like they should have so they got of lightly for years along came the new system using digimap to work out the sizes of properties and a huge rise in bills.

wayside wrote:The only thing that matters is what are they expected to pay not how they are classified.

I cant see the bill being huge, most hotels saw a rise of 300-500% and most other businesses saw a 300% rise.

One problem is on the old system many places were not charged anything like they should have so they got of lightly for years along came the new system using digimap to work out the sizes of properties and a huge rise in bills.

Didn't you get shafted with the SF wayside ?

I think they do need to pay something, after all it is a business, the area shouldn't be that big anyway.

Because they got away with it for so long they think its unfair.

I cant remember the exact figures for the Strawberry Farm but I think it was about £1,800.000 went up to £3,300.00 last year and then to over £8,000.00 this year.