Valuations office agency issue.

[SteveR]

Hi all, long time no post. I saw this on Facebook from a local well respected mobile car valeting service. They recently got a premises to work from as well as be mobile, anyway, I've pasted this post straight from Facebook. I know there are some knowledgeable folk on here so hoping maybe someone knows something they can do about this issue...

Thanks - Facebook post below





We also wanted to take an opportunity to make our customers and the public aware of a situation which has caused our business and others within our enterprise park a great deal of problems....

Back in May we were suddenly hit with a business rates bill of over £8,000 a year, this was after taking on the unit in March under the expectation of paying no rates due to small business rates relief.

The VOA (Valuations Office Agency) have kindly decided to give us an over inflated and inaccurate rateable value for the premises which has resulted in this bill.

Now we are going through an appeal process but in the meantime have to find nearly double the original cost of the unit every month to pay a business rates bill we shouldn't have.

This is despite many other industrial units the same size as ours on the estate being exempt and paying £0.

We have provided lots of evidence to the VOA to prove our rateable value is too high including direct comparisons to other units on the estate which are nearly the exact same size and paying up to £15 per m2 less than us.

It is incredibly difficult to have to pay Selby Council all this money whilst the issue is resolved, and even then we might not get the result we are hoping for.

But more importantly how de-moralising to have worked so hard to build up a business over the last two years and risk it being completely taken away by one stubborn person in the Valuations Office Agency that refuses to change our rateable value.

We have lost many many working hours trying to resolve and fight this, when we shouldn't have to, it's hard enough being a small business still in the first couple of years opening without all this added stress.

Our only option now may be to try make our case heard around social media and make people aware, just then someone might help before it's too late.

Thank you for reading.

Ross

Suds

[thegreatdogwood]

The rates assessment is based upon a notional rental value at a point in time. The current list came out in 2017 and is based upon 2015 rental values, so whilst there will be variances, a rough guide would be to see how the rent they agreed when taking the premises compares to the RV.

The assessment comes back to the area of the premises and rate per meter applied. The breakdown of ALL RV's is available through the VOA website and by the sounds of it the car valeters may have looked at this in establishing their RV is £15psm higher than others.

But basically all you can do is to check that the areas used for your own valuation are correct and compare the rates used for other premises. If it is £15psm higher, is it because your floor area is incorrectly higher, a mistake, or the VOA thinks your space is better quality?? Likewise also check how the rate applied compares to market rents in 2015 as ultimately that is what the RV is supposed to be.

Then all you can do is appeal which can take time. I'd lobby the local MP and copy in the head of that local VOA office too, making it clear that the business could fail imminently because of the cashflow burden from an incorrect assessment. Also lobby the Valuation Tribunal, in practice most appeals don't get looked at until they are listed for hearing by the Tribunal so press to get yours heard on hardship grounds.

All RV's in the 2017 list have been available for several years now. So unless this assessment has been altered post 2017, the moral is equally to do proper research before you take a unit. If it has been altered then that becomes the focus, what has changed to make the assessment go up.