There are a lot of reasons why a business might choose to move their office premises, and a dedicated, experienced removal firm will find out many of these and provide a tailored service suitable to expediting the process whilst protecting vital equipment, documents and fragile objects.

Many of the reasons involve a business scaling up its operations, downsizing to better suit its needs, relocating to more closely match its market, or some combination of business reasons.

In other cases, the cause is a problem with the office, whether it is too small, outdated, decrepit or infested with some kind of unwanted fauna or flora.

However, in one particularly unusual case that has led to a year-long dispute between a business owner and a city council, snails were allegedly brought in on purpose, although the reasons why this is are subject to dispute.

Snail Farm Or Slimy Tax Scheme?

One of Liverpool’s original seven streets, Dale Street is one of the busiest areas in Liverpool, home to countless businesses of varying types, market sectors and sizes over the years. 

However, in the 2020s, the office buildings located at 9 Dale Street became the epicentre of an office use dispute.

One of the firms renting space in the building is Snai1 Primary Products 2023, a snail farm owned and operated by Terrance Ball, owner of another company known as BoyceBrook, a company that claims to minimise the liability costs for empty properties.

The farm in question consists of 15 crates containing a very small number of snails, with some containing just two snails each.

There have been two arguments made about the scale of the farm, one by Mr Ball and one by Liverpool City Council.

The number of snails has been justified to avoid potential consequences that come with large numbers of snails being in a confined space together, particularly in a mixed-use office where the appearance of snails might lead to people moving to new premises.

The counter-argument, however, is that the “snail farm” is part of a scheme to try and get either all or part of the building to qualify as being used for “agricultural” purposes, allowing it to be exempt from business rates.

This scheme has been attempted before in multiple parts of the country, most notably in Leeds and Bradford.

There have been efforts to challenge the ruling by relevant councils but with mixed results.

Whilst Kirklees Council successfully challenged the use of a snail farm and established that it was part of a tax avoidance scheme, the Bradford scheme was ultimately not challenged.

However, a major case that may lead to the snail farm argument being thrown out was a High Court case in 2021 in Leeds, where a bizarre office tenancy agreement restricted the use of the empty space to “heliciculture” (snail farming) despite being offices, leading Leeds City Council to conclude that no legitimate business could take place.

Exactly what will happen next for the office snails is uncertain, but there are better ways to breed snails, and other parts of the market sector have argued that a viable business requires thousands of snails and daily feeding, aiding the Council’s case for removal.