In-depth market knowledge
Farebrother’s team are experienced rating specialists as well as landlord & tenant experts, property valuers, agents, development advisers and property managers too.
Our support to you will include:
• Challenging the Rateable Value
• Exploring splits and mergers and temporary reductions in the Rateable Value
• Negotiating with the Billing Authority where the rates bill is not correct
• Checking your yearly rates bill
• Providing you with forecasts of future rates to help you budget
• Keeping you informed on changes to the rating system
• Completing Forms of Return sent out by the Valuation Officer
• Ad-hoc advice, when required.
We will set-out the best basis for reducing your rates bill and then get on with it.
We ask to be paid by results. We only charge if savings have been won.
Jargon buster
AVD Antecedent Valuation Date
The date at which all Rateable Values are assessed. The AVD for all five yearly revaluation cycles is taken two years before the revaluation date. The AVD for Rateable Values in force under the 2010 Revaluation is 1st April 2008.
Appeals
In order to challenge the assessment a formal appeal needs to be registered with the Valuation Officer. The grounds of the appeal and the details provided must be set-out in a particular way to help ensure that the appeal is valid.
Business Improvement District Levy
Business Improvement Districts (BIDs) represent and benefit the interests of the businesses within their respective areas, so they each have a different agenda. They are funded by an additional levy on rate-payers within the BID area. Funds raised are ring-fenced for spending within that area.
BRS Business Rate Supplement
An additional business rates charge to fund projects that support local business growth, such as Crossrail.
Charitable Rate Relief
Charitable or discretionary relief on rates payable can be granted where the rate-payer can satisfy the Billing Authority that the organisation operates on a not-for-profit basis.
Empty Rates Liability
Recent changes in legislation allow the government to levy 100% rates on empty offices after a three month qualifying void period.
RV Rateable Value
The hypothetical rental value of the property assuming it is vacant, to let and on the open market at a given date in time (the antecedent date of valuation or AVD).
Revaluation
The five-yearly exercise undertaken by the Valuation Office by which all commercial properties are valued in order to determine their Rateable Value for the Rating List.
SBRR Small Business Rate Relief Scheme
A scheme to help small businesses who qualify for a reduction in the rates payable because of the amount of RV they pay. A lesser rate multiplier is applied which changes from year to year.
TP Transitional Penalty
The Government must make any changes to the rating system cost neutral. Transitional relief given to businesses with a large increase in their bill is recouped from other rate-payers through phasing rates decreases over 5 years.
TR Transitional Arrangements
Transition is used in the rates payable calculation for qualifying properties. To avoid sudden increases in annual rates due to big changes in the RV between 5 yearly revaluation cycles, transition or phasing is calculated on rates payable in the previous rate year, a set % uplift and the rate of inflation. Phasing is applied upwards as well as downwards, where the RV has dropped between Rating Lists.
UBR Uniform Business Rate
The annual rate multiplier set nationally. Rateable Value x rate multiplier or Uniform Business Rate = rates payable. In 2009/10 the UBR was 48.9p in London. The UBR is subject to annual changes to the Retail Price Index (RPI). For each revaluation, the UBR is recalculated based upon a complicated equation set down in law.
RATING ADVICE FROM FAREBROTHER
Appeal success
Over-valued property
Client: Mitsui & Co
Building: King William Street, EC4
Case: Reduction in the permanent level of assessment
Savings: £426,000
How: Survey details, comparable evidence and valuation issues were all used in negotiations to reduce the permanent assessment over the five year Revaluation cycle.
Neighbouring building works
Client: HG Capital
Building: More London, SE1
Case: Temporary reduction of the assessment
Saving: £20,000
How: We demonstrated to the Valuation Officer that adjacent building works created disruption that affected our clients’ occupation.
Deleted Assessments
Client: O&H Properties
Property: High Holborn, WC1
Case: Deletion of assessments and delay in reinstatement
Saving: £120,000 over a 10 month period
How: Agreeing to delete the assessments as soon as practically possible before refurbishment, stage managing inspections and negotiating with the Valuation Officer and local authority that ensured no empty rate charge was incurred by the owner before a tenant was secured for the building.
Ensuring the Billing Authority calculate rates correctly
Client: Galbraith’s
Property: Borough High Street, SE1
Case: Challenging the rates calculated by the Billing Authority
Saving: £125,000
How: We successfully argued that under the regulations, rates liability had not been calculated correctly and that the property qualified for transitional relief.
Management of a series of appeals over the five year revaluation cycle on a single site
Client: Euromoney Institutional Investor
Property: Carter Lane, EC4
Case: A mixed-use site, with buildings of various ages, acquired, refurbished and occupied over a 5 year period
Saving: In excess of £600,000
How: Careful stage management of the appeals enabled us to reduce, delete and merge various assessments at key points over the 5 year cycle. At the same time maximizing the effects of disruption by agreeing temporary reductions for those other affected buildings still under our client’s occupation.
All the angles
Farebrother’s team are experienced rating specialists as well as landlord & tenant experts, property valuers, agents, development advisers and property managers too.
We specialise in advising businesses in the centre of London and have done so for over two hundred years. Since 2005, our team has achieved rates savings totalling over £40 m for our clients, clients that include CBI, Dechert LLP, Lewis Silkin LLP, Royal London, Mitsui & Co and Euromoney.
www.farebrother.com