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Afternoon, We have just finished our conversion of part of a company run nursing home. As such it is a change of use from commercial to residential and, in theory, we thought that we would be able to claim the VAT on the materials. HMRC “DIY team” have stated that we cannot claim as the building had been “lived in” within the last 10 years. we think we still have a claim but was wondering if anybody had encountered anything like this with their build and claim? Looking for clarification and maybe a precedence if anybody can help 🤓

Good evening everyone, My name is Ioana and I am currently studying my master's degree in Real Estate Finance and Investment at UWE Bristol. I am working on my dissetation with the title “Is BREEAM the Key to a Sustainable Future? A Study Assessing Its Influence on Commercial Property Value” which analyzes if a commercial building gains benefits in terms of sale price, rental value, speed of transaction, ability to secure finance and corporate image and prestige value, by obtaining a BREEAM Certificate. In order to gain an in-depth analysis, I created a questionnaire for potential participants who have knowledge in terms of BREEAM and commercial real estate. The responses would be anonymous and further used for research purposes only. If you would be able to complete this questionnaire it would be much appreciated and if you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me. I will attach the link below and then you can decide if it is something that you would be interested in completing. Thank you so much for your time! https://uwe.eu.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_2nOwigO3YHaKrem

Hi guys, Got a question I think one of you guys might be able to answer albeit not really a build related question: Do I need this cold water tank in my commercial property? Here is the background... I have a business premises which is basically a commercial unit that has had offices/kitchen/storage built into it, so when it was built in the early 00's it was just an open plan unit with a male and female WC, above this "toilet block" is a cold water tank, it must be about 200/250litres (based on it's size compared to an oil drum which is 205litres). We would like to develop the area above the toilet block to tie it into the mezz storage level we already have but the tank is bang smack in the middle for weight loading reasons and it really makes the space useless. All that is fed from this tank is the two toilets. It would be a simple case of cutting the two pipes that go to the tank and join them somewhere downstairs thus making the toilets mains fed. Apart from the obvious issue of if the water supply is cutoff we would only have a cistern full of water for each toilet to flush is there any reason why we could not remove this tank? I can think of no logical engineering reason other than that the valves in the cistern might not take mains pressure (although they should) but I am fitting a PRV to the system due to a new 15litre Ariston water heater we have installed which requires the incoming pressure to be no higher than 3bar so I can reduce the supply to the whole property with the Honeywall valve I have already purchased. The reason I am asking and not just doing, is because this is a commercial property and occasionally Scottish Water do make system checks of our water system to ensure we are in compliance (non-return valves before water heaters and so on). If anything I see a tank as a liability for many reasons. Is this tank a throwback to an older plumbing code?