According to business rates experts at Colliers, latest figures just announced by the government reveal that the business rates appeal system: Check Challenge Appeal (CCA) is storing up “a tsunami” of appeals over the next seven months as we approach the final stretch of the 2023 list which ends on 31st March 2026.
According to government (VOA) statistics, in the 27 months since the beginning of the 2023 list (1st April 2023 to 30th June 2025), 162,440 Checks (the first part of the appeal process) were registered in England of which 17,330 are still outstanding.
More concerning is that of the 35,910 of these which progressed to the Challenge (second) stage of the process, well over half – 20,160 (or 56 %), were still outstanding 9 months before the end of the three year list. And only 9,340 (26%) of Challenges had been resolved so far, with 6410 (18%) labelled as “incomplete” by the VOA and therefore struck out/ declared void.
Given the difficulty for businesses in registering a Check in CCA in the first place- the amount of detailed information businesses now need to provide means that most have to use professional rating surveyors- Colliers believes many businesses have up to now held back from registering their appeals. But in the next seven months new Checks will begin to flood the already creakingly slow system as the deadline approaches.
According to John Webber, Head of Business Rates at Colliers, “Many businesses have only recently finished disputing their values from the 2017 list and are only now turning to look at the 2023 list. And for those businesses in the RHL (retail, hospitality and leisure) sectors who received reliefs on their business rates bills in the first two years of this list, the economic picture is now getting much tougher as the reliefs have been significantly cut and will soon disappear altogether. They will undoubtedly now consider disputing current rateable values.
We think as businesses return from their summer holidays in September, they will start to put their appeals in against their current valuations. And looking at the numbers we at Colliers are already advising, we estimate there will be about 100,000 new appeals (checks) across the industry lodged over the next seven months.”
Webber advises that businesses would be sensible to challenge their rates bills if they can. As the VOA’s own figures reveal: 60% of businesses who challenged their business rates valuations saw a reduced RV (rateable value) as a result and only 0.6% saw an increase, and 54% of those who went onto the appeal stage also saw a reduction to their RV, with 0% seeing an increase. Success rates are therefore high.
However, Colliers is concerned about how slow the system is to get such challenges resolved.
As Webber continued, “If 56% of Challenges have still not been resolved 27 months on from being registered, how will the VOA cope with the expected 100,000 of new businesses disputing their 2023 valuations in the next 7 months? By next April the VOA will also need to start working on the 2029 list, for which the law will change giving businesses only a 6-month window in which to appeal. It’s going to be carnage.”
“The burden of business rates is too high and the lack of transparency about how bills are arrived at remains the root cause of this shocking number of people trying to appeal their rate bills. We believe the VOA is severely under resourced to deal with these numbers in the timeframe and will struggle. Businesses will miss out.
We believe businesses need and deserve a better appeals system- and they need it now.
