Lay My Hat

Has anyone had any success in applying for and getting the small business grant for FHL in Scotland?

We are in the process of applying in Moray and initially had to provide some supporting documentation including Public Liability Insurance and list of all bookings for 2019/20.

Now we have been requested to detail the gross income for the FHL and total Gross Income for ratepayer (Income from FHL should primary source of income exceeding 1/3 of Total Gross Income). We also have to show that the property was let for a minimum of 140 days for 2019/20 (actually occupied, not just available). Does anyone know where the 140 days has come from, as this differs from HMRC requirements?

I've been reading the thread regarding FHLs in Wales and thinking that Scotland is going the same way. Anyone else got any experience?

Thanks

It seems that we meet all the criteria for the Highland grant, except the income from the holiday let does not make up a third of total income for the last financial year. So it seems that if I earned £100,000 in my normal job and £35,000 from the holiday let, we would qualify. We feel we are playing the game by closing. I have been furloughed by my employer and my wife has had to close her business too. It’s going to be a tough year and the government and council are finding ways of not helping

Highland seem to have it pretty well sorted.

We had to provide details of bookings to prove over 140 nights and a copy of last years self assessment for income.

Took about a week to process.

Got mine on Friday, also from Highland. 2 weeks 3 days to process, which included Easter - they're doing well, I think, given they reckon they have 4,400 potentially eligible properties.

Fife Council made a payment to me after a three week processing time.

We've just had an email notifying us that we will receive our grant this Friday from Moray Council. Applied initially on 4th April and returned the self certification and declaration a week ago.

Holiday lets are our only income so we don't have a problem with the other income aspect of it. I didn't provide any further evidence other than stating it was our only source of income.

I think their requirement that the property is actually let for 140 days rather than just "available for let" which is the requirement for NDR and HMRC is to make sure that the property is actually a commerical enterprise. I downloaded a spreadsheet of our bookings for 19/20 (excluding guest names) from PIMs and totalled up the number of nights let which in our case was >300.

I gave the links to our own website and listed the booking sites we have the property listed on and attached a copy of our insurance.

Hopefully it will arrive in the bank when they say it will!!

Thanks everyone for your responses.

I'm assuming the criteria is the same then in other Scottish regions. Although I've heard from a couple of Tourism Groups that there is disparity in Scotland and how the LA's are interpreting the government's guidelines.

I'll go ahead and submit our paperwork but don't hold much hope of receiving the grant as we fall short by about 4 days for 2019/20.

BTW - Moray_Cottages we know your cottage in Burghead My brother lives just behind it in. We are regular visitors there.

Contrary to my earlier post about a three week turnaround time for the application I haven't actually received payment.

Application submitted 7th April. Confirmation that the cottage qualified was e-mailed to me on 23rd April. I thought that the application checking would be the time consuming bit and a BACS payment would follow in short order. A polite escalation e-mail sent on 30th (as per their process) hasn't generated any action or a response.

They could well be toiling for a whole host of legitimate reasons and maybe post a couple of lines up on the Web site to manage expectations. Nada.

Is this experience typical in Fife region?

Highland council, applied for Grant and 5 days later was told I was getting it and arrived in the bank account 7 days after applying!