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By Cavetta ● May 27, 2025 ● Cavetta News

Do You Qualify for Capital Allowances? Here’s How to Find Out (And Why It Matters)

Capital allowances are one of the most underutilised forms of tax relief available to UK commercial property owners. If you own or lease a property for business use – and that includes renting out that space, there’s a high chance you’re sitting on unclaimed tax savings — and you might not even know it.

In this post, we’ll break down who qualifies, what you can claim for, and how to find out if you’re eligible — arm you the knowledge to understand and question what your accountant has include in your tax return to ensure your claims are maximised.

What Are Capital Allowances?

Capital allowances let you offset the cost of qualifying assets against your taxable profits. In plain English? You can claim tax relief on the “plant and machinery” embedded in your commercial property — things like:

Electrical systems
Heating and air conditioning
Fire alarms and security systems
Fitted kitchens and bathrooms
Lighting, cabling, lifts and more

These are often missed, because they’re not broken down in standard property purchase documents and contractor’s invoices. That’s why a specialist survey is key.

Do You Qualify for Capital Allowances?

✅ The Key Eligibility Questions

Ask yourself these five questions:

Do you own or lease a commercial property?
Offices, shops, warehouses, care homes, hotels, industrial units and more are all potentially eligible.
Was the purchase, construction or renovation cost over £100,000?
Capital allowances often make the biggest impact on higher-value properties.
Do you pay tax in the UK?
You need to be paying tax to HMRC in the UK to qualify
Is the property used for business purposes?
Either by your business or let to another commercial tenant.
Have you had a capital allowances survey done by a specialist?
If not — you’re almost certainly leaving money on the table.

What If My Accountant Has Already Looked At This?

This can be one of the biggest misconceptions we see. Your accountant might have claimed some allowances — but your accountant may not drill down into the contractor’s invoices or the purchase price in the way that a capital allowances specialist will.

We often uncover £50,000 to £100,000 in unclaimed relief ! Sometime more!

How Much Could You Claim?

Every property is different. However, on average, our clients claim back 20% to 40% of the purchase or build cost in plant and machinery allowances at a rate up to 100% in the tax year.

That means:

On a £500,000 commercial building: you could unlock £100,000–£200,000 of allowances!
On a £1M investment: even more
In addition, you may also get tax relief on the building structure but a lower rate of 3%

This isn’t a loophole — it’s HMRC-approved tax relief that you’re entitled to claim.

How To Find Out If You’re Eligible

At Cavetta Consulting, we offer a free eligibility check to tell you whether a claim is possible and roughly what it could be worth. Or you could use our capital allowances calculator.

There’s no obligation, no risk, and no upfront cost.

✅ What You’ll Need for the Check:

Basic property details (type, use, specification, floor area)
The purchase contract (price, date and details of any capital allowances clauses)
Whether you’ve claimed anything before

That’s it. We’ll do the digging and tell you what’s possible.

Ready to Find Out if You Qualify?

If you own or lease a commercial property, haven’t had a capital allowances survey, and answer yes to the first four questions above — you may have capital allowances to unlock. And we’re here to help you claim what’s rightfully yours.

📞 Book your free eligibility check today
📩 Or message us with the word “QUALIFY” and we’ll get in touch

Still not sure?
We’ve helped clients uncover over £200 million in unclaimed allowances — even when they thought there was “nothing left to claim.”