UK Business Rates Refund Specialists
We identify and recover your overpaid business rates on a no win, no fee basis.
There are two principle methods of mitigating costs:
Challenge the Rateable Value (Not our Remit)
The most common and traditional way that a business can reduce the cost of business rates charged is to challenge the Rateable Value (RV) set by the Valuation Office (VOA).
This is a long process which can take many months, or even years, to resolve because of the volume of challenges the VOA have to deal with each year.
There are normally upfront costs if one uses the services of a Rating Specialist (Agent), with no guarantee of a reduction and in some cases may produce an increase of chargeable rates if the Agent or the rate payer is not well informed.
Speculative challenges by third party Agents, or indeed the Rate Payer, do clog up the system and figures show that less than 30% result in a change in the RV being actioned by the VOA, however there is not always a reduction in payments and increases will be borne for future years.
We do not get involved in this aspect of Rating and nearly all but a few of our many clients use the services of an Agent alongside GB Recoveries as our work does not impinge upon the Agents.
Reviewing the Rate Payments (Our Remit)
Our work is always retrospective, we deal with past payments.
This is a form of Audit and is an additional way to make certain that the rates paid by the Business are in accordance with good practice and procedures of the Billing Authority (BA).
The BA has a remit to collect a rate in the pound against the RV set by the VOA for Central Government (CG).
The BA sends the tax collected to the Treasury and CG re-distribute a portion of the Tax collected by each council back to the BA’s coffers to be used to maintain public services.
Simple enough one may think!
Simple enough one may think! However;
We look at the way the BA’s have responded to changes in procedures, RV’s, Governance, Management of Rating Accounts which, on the whole, is true and accurate but oversights can creep in caused by data entry errors, excessive workloads, subcontracted Rating services to the private sector and many more opportunities for GB Recoveries to investigate, and this is where we are.
The Billing Authorities respond to our enquiries quickly, usually in 21 days, the refunds they make is not out of their treasury, it belongs to central government (The Treasury) and they have set aside reserves to allow for the regular refunds to be made to rate payers when claims are upheld.
Billing Authorities do not take the refund process personally, its’ all about being seen to be accurately managed, so we actually assist in a way.
There is no risk to a Client losing out by our service we are either right or wrong, its black and white, if you like, no shadows.
I do stress that if a client is in arrears with their payments to the BA they should advise us at the outset so we can take account of that situation.
Finally, we do not ask for any upfront payments, the refunds can go directly back to the rate payer and the client pays our fee out of the funds received, so it is self-funding.
Throughout the last 15 years we have worked in this capacity for Banks, FTSE 100 Companies, Major Retailers, renowned Accountants and Liquidators, Investment Funds, Off Shore Companies and almost every form of Incorporated Business.
I hope this helps with your decision and look forward to your using the services of GB Recoveries (GBR)