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Rating Talking Heads: August

Consultation: More Frequent Revaluations Fundamental Review of Business Rates

This event runs as an informal discussion with a small panel of leading and informed practitioners extracting the nuances from the monthly topic. They discuss practical issues that arise, with participants in the meeting being encouraged to listen, join in, ask questions and share comments. 

Module Duration: 1 hour 4 minutes

Recorded: 17/08/21

Areas covered

Please note there are no slides accompanying this recording. 

The UK Government ran a consultation in June 2020 entitled a fundamental review of business rates. More than a year on, they have published a new consultation that focuses on carrying out more frequent revaluations.

The idea of more frequent reviews has been around for some time, but this consultation perhaps points to a direction of travel for the policy changes that will form the fundamental review reforms. This talking heads event brings a timely review to what the consultation contains, and provides our audience the opportunity to participate in the responses the government invites as the consultation is due to close on 24 August.

So what’s in it? As always, the devil’s in the detail.

Three-yearly revaluations are proposed. In themselves they could be warmly welcomed by ratepayers and professionals, but they come with significant downsides – which are likely to add costs or restrictions on ratepayers – such as:

  • A duty on ratepayers to notify the VO of any changes to properties or occupiers
  • Requirement to complete an annual confirmation return
  • Mandatory provision of lease information
  • Compliance measures for these to include: conditional entry to the appeals system and penalties for non-compliance
  • There would also be restrictions on appeals more generally, including a 3-month window for revaluation appeals and a “review” of what MCC appeals might cover.

Some may argue that all the downsides seem to be a pretty heavy price to pay for a reduction in the revaluation period from five years (notional) to three years. It has been commented that what makes it particularly difficult pill to swallow is that the government does not propose any reduction in the current two-year gap between AVD and list commencement. So on this proposal there will have a two-year AVD for a three-year list! This means that valuations will still be up to five years out of date by the end of list (two years AVD to list commencement and three-year life of list). Does a two-year AVD for a three-year list feel wrong?

Join us for what will be a review of the consultation paper; and having a running commentary from 3 leading industry practitioners. You the audience will have the opportunity to ask questions and share your point of view. Its your industry.

August's Talking Heads