New figures confirm a tsunami of business rates appeals against the 2023 rating list, as predicted, says business rates experts at Colliers.
According to government (VO) statistics, in the first three months of the year 129,810 new checks (the first part of the appeal process) were registered against the 2023 rating list in England. That’s nearly five times the number of checks registered in the previous quarter, when 26,170 new checks were registered, and up from 22,840 the quarter before.
VO figures reveal that 59,470 challenges (the second part of the process) were registered since the start of the 2023 rating list. Of these, 22,380 were resolved, 10,510 were marked incomplete (not containing all the detail required in legislation), and 26,580 remained outstanding. This means the VO has only been able to resolve 38% of the challenges registered in the three years of the list.
John Webber, head of business rates at Colliers, said that to work through five times the number of checks as normal will take the VO at least two years, looking at their previous rate of processing.
“And in terms of the challenges, given the VO has only resolved 38% of those submitted in the whole three years of the list, how long is it going to take to resolve the remaining 45%?”
This means that it looks like the VO won’t finish processing checks and challenges against the 2023 rating list before it begins work on the 2029 list, which has an antecedent valuation date of 1st April, 2027.
“It’s going to be carnage, and ratepayers unhappy with their business rates bills will be the ones to suffer,” said Webber.
