VAT on improvements

My clients own a farmhouse and a small area of land with a couple of redundant farm buildings but they are not farmers. They own a company that rents a storage unit of about 6 000 square feet from a third party.

Subject to obtaining planning consent they intend to grant a lease to their company (an informal arrangement with a rent-free period at the start) for one of the redundant farm buildings so that the company can move out of the other premises and be closer to home.

The company will need to make some improvements to the building to bring it up to specification for the nature of the business. The clients estimate that the company might have to spend about £50 000. My queries are as follows.

• Can the company recover the VAT on the costs of improving the building that it...