If you know where to look, there has been a lot in the news about Business Rates for the last 18 months. An elongated window – seven years instead of five – a new appeals process and some punitive rises for some have all made the headlines. The Chancellor Phillip Hammond even set aside £300m in the spring budget to assist businesses hit particularly hard.

The previous window closed on 31st March and a new five year window opened on 1st April. Organisations should now have been notified of their new rateable value and the associated bill by local authorities. For some, the increases have been steep, while others have benefitted from a reduction.

If you are an organisation that is suffering from a high increase in rates, the good news is there is an appeals process in place – and you can use expert help to maximise your chances of getting something from it. The bad news is the Government has also launched a new ‘Check, Challenge, Appeal’ (CCA) process, which looks to have made the process more demanding for the ratepayer. The process is managed by the Valuation Office Agency (VOA), an executive agency of HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC), and at the date of writing this article, the final process is still being finalised.

If you wish to challenge your rateable value, the first step requires logging into the new Government Gateway and entering your details. This includes entering the personal details of the registrant in order to satisfy HMRC identity verification. For the associated data protection reasons, this can only be done by the individual themselves and not outsourced to a third party.

There is more good news after that though – which is that from that point on, an organisation such as ours can take the strain. The new CCA process seeks to provide a smoother, more streamlined system. With so many rises in place however, the system could easily be facing an unprecedented volume of appeals.

As ever, the first step if you think you may wish to appeal is to send us a copy of your rates bill. Our experienced specialists, with visibility and understanding of the Rating List, will be able to research this further and provide a quick assessment of whether there is any scope for you to obtain a reduction in rates.

The £300m ring-fenced by government won’t go very far, and lots of organisations will be facing rises they see as unfair – or even unsustainable. Once we’ve made an initial assessment, organisations that we can help will be asked to register their details on the portal. From there we can manage the entire ‘Check, Challenge, Appeal’ process and take the headache out of your hands.