Businesses deserve a better business rates appeals system

The latest business rates appeal figures recently announced reveal that the business rates system and in particular, CCA, the ‘Check Challenge Appeal’ Business Rates Appeals System, is not up to scratch with many businesses still struggling to get their business rates appeals through the system.

According to government statistics, in the first sixth months of the new 2023 rating list (1 April to 30 September 2023), 30,950 checks (the first part of the appeal process) were registered of which almost 40 %, or 12,160 still remain outstanding. Only 2,530 of these checks have progressed to the next challenge stage and of these challenges, only 180 have been resolved – a very low 7 %.

The figures also reveal 8.3 % of all challenges have been labelled as “incomplete” by the VOA and therefore void. We believe this figure is unacceptably high given the amount of evidence businesses now provide in registering a check in CCA in the first place and the professional help they are increasingly needing to use to get through this arduous system. Much of the rejection seems to be on a technicality, illustrating how the system is weighed against the rate payer.

This is further evidenced by the fact that that  the VOA has four months to decide whether a challenge is valid, but on receiving the news that the challenge is “incomplete” the rate payer or their adviser can, in many cases, only be given 24 hours to dispute this.

The government has also revealed CCA statistics for the now closed 2017 list and here again the picture is concerning. The latest figures reveal 37,470 challenges against the 2017 list are still outstanding. This means almost seven years after the start of the 2017 rating list, 21% of the appeals businesses have submitted have not been resolved. Such lack of  progress in resolving these high appeal numbers should certainly raise eyebrows.

Both these sets of figures reveal that the VOA is seriously under pressure. And that’s only going to get worse.

Given the government’s promise of three yearly revaluations, the next list will be in 2026 with a valuation date of 1 April 2024. The VOA will therefore need to get working on this new list next year. We believe the VOA is under resourced to deal with the new list given the backlog we are still seeing from the 2017 list as well as the current 2023 list. Against this background it is perhaps not surprising that there has been pressure to reduce the challenges from the 2023 list, with so many now labelled “incomplete” and thus void, even though most of these have been submitted with professional help.

The suggestion that CCA is working has been blown out of the water with these latest statistics. None of this bodes well for businesses trying to appeal their business rates.

The VOA keeps trying to frustrate ratepayers in appealing their rating assessments, but even with the hurdles in place businesses are continuing to challenge their assessments. The burden of business rates is too high and the lack of transparency about how their bills are arrived at is the root cause of the high number of people trying to appeal their rate bills – despite the difficult process ahead.

Businesses deserve better. In our Colliers Business Rates Manifesto we call for a system that is transparent, easy to access for all and allow appeals to be resolved in 12 months. We call for a complete overhaul of CCA and proper resources for the VOA to create a system that is fit for purpose – and one that supports rather than penalises UK business.

John Webber is head of business rates at Colliers