The business rates Check Challenge Appeal (CCA) system is set to be inundated by a flurry of new appeals, according to Colliers.
Recent statistics published by the Valuation Office Agency (VOA), reveal that in the 27 months since the beginning of the 2023 list, which ran from 1 April 2023 to 30 June 2025, 162,440 Checks were registered of which 17,330 are still outstanding.
Of the 35,910 which progressed to the Challenge stage of the process, 20,160 were still outstanding nine months before the end of the three year list, with only 9,340 of Challenges resolved so far and 6,410 labelled as “incomplete” by the VOA and therefore struck out/declared void.
Colliers believes many businesses have up to now held back from registering their appeals and it warned that in the next seven months new Checks will begin to flood the system as the March 2026 deadline approaches.
John Webber, head of business rates at Colliers, said: “Many businesses have only recently finished disputing their values from the 2017 list and are only now turning to look at the 2023 list. And for those businesses in the retail, hospitality and leisure sectors who received reliefs on their business rates bills in the first two years of this list, the economic picture is now getting much tougher as the reliefs have been significantly cut and will soon disappear altogether. They will undoubtedly now consider disputing current rateable values.
“We think as businesses return from their summer holidays in September, they will start to put their appeals in against their current valuations. And looking at the numbers we at Colliers are already advising, we estimate there will be about 100,000 new appeals across the industry lodged over the next seven months.”
Webber continued, “If 56% of Challenges have still not been resolved 27 months on from being registered, how will the VOA cope with the expected 100,000 of new businesses disputing their 2023 valuations in the next seven months? By next April the VOA will also need to start working on the 2029 list, for which the law will change giving businesses only a six-month window in which to appeal. It’s going to be carnage.”
“The burden of business rates is too high and the lack of transparency about how bills are arrived at remains the root cause of this shocking number of people trying to appeal their rate bills. We believe the VOA is severely under resourced to deal with these numbers in the timeframe and will struggle. Businesses will miss out. We believe businesses need and deserve a better appeals system – and they need it now.”
