Here's the game:
1) There are taxes levied on business users of commercial office property in the UK.
2) Independent small businesses may apply for tax relief if they rent a space that has a rateable value of less than £15,000. (1)
3) The intention of this relief was to provide small business users with a fighting chance to be able to afford office space.
4) The "total rateable" value" of a massive open coworking space is obviously higher than £15,000 but if you're a business renting 2 desks maybe you should qualify for the small business relief?
5) Coworking landlords figured out that they could qualify for the tax breaks THEMSELVES if they cut their own properties into dozens (or hundreds) of small plots or pieces called hereditaments.
6) Then in effect you have these hundreds of hereditaments claiming the small business tax and collecting rent from a small business.
WeWork is a slightly worse abuser of the game played by virtually all coworking operators in the UK.
The "coworking" lobby has published a study outlining their view (1).
At the core Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs set up a system that didn't count on the inevitable "enterprise" player paying tax attorneys to abuse them, and the two sides should probably sit down and sort out something reasonable.
But instead they're suing eachother to oblivion and employing armies of attorneys :).
(1) https://www.gov.uk/apply-for-business-rate-relief/small-busi...
(2) https://lep.london/sites/default/files/The%20affordability%2...