Insurance and rates for your lock up?

As far as I know, it's more a case of the council telling you what it is rather than the other way round.

For a "unit" of the sort we would like to use, you may want commercial or not. Assuming it's commercial (e.g. an industrial unit),  it's important that it is classified as one of a set of "planning use cases". The one you need will depend on what you want to do there, and you should check what the classification is before you buy.

You can change classifications, but depending on your council and local restrictions, some changes are not possible e.g. changing your house to industrial use.

The most common commercial classifications for our hobbies would be:
B2 General Industrial. Most general use, generally what commercial garages would have I think
B8 Storage/Distribution - if it's only a "lockup"

You could also find something considered residential, such as a garage en bloc. I am unsure how these are classified, but they appear to be non-industrial and not attract rates.

If you're selling stuff from there etc. Then other classes may apply.

Are you intending to buy as a private individual? There's a lot to consider there with regards to business rates, what insurance is available to you, tax relief and so on.

Insurance wise, I'd probably consider separate insurance for the vehicles to the property/contents, for the non-commercial insurance I've seen, most won't even cover a bicycle let alone a car in the garage. Google "lockup insurance" and there are a few suppliers, although many only cover the building, not contents. If buying as a company, lots of suppliers.

I am currently looking at buying a small space myself, probably a single or double garage. So far it seems that it would be relatively straightforward and not attract rates or council tax. I am assuming that such garages are classified as residential rather than industrial. That being said, I've not clarified with the council what I need to tell them in practice. One other point to consider is that if you have two "residential" properties, government incentives that they throw into budgets every now and then may not apply to you, who knows whether that makes any odds!

If I could find a proper small industrial unit that would be even better, but I'm having trouble finding info on owning a commercial property as an individual. From what I've seen so far, I suspect that as the landlord I would be on the hook for business rates, even if a business was not trading from there.

There are some cases where a business property would not owe rates:
- agricultural exemption
- if the property is vacant (3 month exemption, 6 months for industrial, indefinite for listed buildings, or those rateable under £2900, which is about the size of a 3 car garage round my way)
- other exemptions for charities, social clubs etc. which are unlikely to apply here
- small business rates relief could give you a £0 rate, subject to rateable value limit and some business trading from there as their only place. Doesn't need to be the owner, so depending on your circumstance you may be able to rent a portion to a business owner you know?

I'm pretty sure the "vacant" exemption wouldn't hold up if you were a private owner and had all your stuff in there and were tinkering there, but who knows. It likely would help for initial renovation works though.

I currently rent a unit as part of my limited company, that I get rates relief on etc, so if you are looking at the route of buying as a ltd company then probably I can help a bit more.

Thanks No VAT
Its currently a small joiners workshop
He tells me rates are exempt due to small eatable value

Thanks Its Zero as its well under

still looking

Register as a sole trader and be self employed- you are under no obligation to make a profit, but you will have to complete a tax return- unless you turn over less than a thousand pounds. As you don't actually have any self employed income - that wouldn't be much of a problem. Lots of businesses don't make a profit - look at Debenhams for example....