A court of appeal ruling last month has effectively ended "box shifting", a legal loophole exploited by property owners for almost two decades to avoid paying business rates on empty commercial buildings, a scheme estimated to have cost local authorities in England more than £1bn. The case centred on 2 America Square, an office block near Tower Bridge in London leased by 48th Street Holdings Ltd, much of which was filled with stacks of storage boxes rather than staff, and was brought by the City of London Corporation against 48th Street and rate-mitigation firm Principled Offsite Logistics Ltd (POLL).

The practice dated back to 2008, when Labour government changes to business rates rules removed a 50% discount on empty properties but allowed a three-month rate-free period at the end of each tenancy; firms exploited this by shifting boxes in and out of buildings every six weeks to repeatedly reset the clock, cutting rates owed by up to 67% and costing one London council an estimated £35m a year since the pandemic. 48th Street paid £27.6m for the lease in 2019 and used POLL's services to save £111,475.30 in rates during 2022 and 2023; after lower courts backed the scheme as legally valid, three court of appeal judges, led by Lady Justice Falk, overturned this, ruling that occupation "for the sake of it" with no genuine use or value does not count as occupation under the law.