Consultation outcome

Checking and challenging your rateable value

This was published under the 2010 to 2015 Conservative and Liberal Democrat coalition government

Applies to England

This consultation has concluded

Download the full outcome

Checking and challenging your rateable value: summary of responses (December 2014)

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Business rates: open letter to those who responded to the consultation paper "checking and challenging your rateable value" (July 2014)

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Detail of outcome

An open letter to those who responded to the consultation paper “checking and challenging your rateable value”.

The consultation summary provides a breakdown of responses by organisation. In total 71 responses were received.


Original consultation

Summary

This consultation sets out the government's proposals to improve transparency in the business rates valuation and formal challenge system.

This consultation ran from
to

Consultation description

The rating system should provide an easy to use and prompt opportunity for ratepayers to understand their rateable value, challenge it if necessary and gain reductions where it is found to be too high. Under the current system, ratepayers cannot see the rental evidence on which rateable values are based and make large numbers of speculative challenges with little or no explanation of why they think their rateable value is wrong.

About 3 quarters of challenges result in no change, but the Valuation Office Agency (VOA) cannot identify those challenges until very late in the process. The resulting delays mean that those businesses whose rateable values are too high have to wait for refunds.

This consultation sets out the government’s proposals to reform the current system for explaining and challenging rateable values.

Documents

Checking and challenging your rateable value: the government’s proposals to improve transparency in the business rates valuation and formal challenge system

Request an accessible format.
If you use assistive technology (such as a screen reader) and need a version of this document in a more accessible format, please email alternativeformats@communities.gov.uk. Please tell us what format you need. It will help us if you say what assistive technology you use.
Published 5 December 2013
Last updated 10 December 2014 + show all updates
  1. Added 'Checking and challenging your rateable value: summary of responses'.

  2. Added open letter to those who responded to the consultation paper "checking and challenging your rateable value".

  3. First published.