Terry Ball's Snail Farming Tax Avoidance Scheme Exploits Empty London Office Blocks
Terry Ball, a 79-year-old former shoe salesman, operates multiple snail farms in empty London office blocks as a method to avoid local council business rates. He runs these farms through multiple shell companies, such as Snai1 Primary Products (2023) Ltd, where he is the sole director. These companies do not file accounts or pay taxes, and as a result, Westminster Council is seeking more than £286,000 from these entities.
Ball's scheme takes advantage of a legal rule that landlords are liable to pay business rates on empty commercial properties. He leases these spaces to shell tenants who accept legal responsibility for these rates, allowing the buildings to remain empty for snail farming purposes. Ball relies on an interpretation that molluscs, including snails, can be categorized under fish farms, which allows land-based snail farming to qualify as agriculture and thus be exempt from business rates.
His operations include four major snail farms in London, the L’Escargotiere headquarters in Ribchester, and a facility at Winchester House. Thousands of snails are stored in freezers awaiting deployment at these sites. Ball has connections to the Naples underworld and employs staff from Naples. A Leeds court ruled in 2021 that his snail farm constituted tax avoidance. Ball himself has a history of bankruptcy and was banned from acting as a company director for nine years, a ban which was lifted in 2016.
Local councils have raided the snail farms and contested the tax exemptions. Ball’s business model involved landlords sharing savings from reduced business rates, initially promoting the idea they could reduce empty-unit rates by up to 93% through what was called the Crusader program.
