Business Rates and Rating Consultancy Insurance

Rating is one of a small number of advisory disciplines where a diary entry is worth more than any amount of technical skill.

A challenge or appeal has to be made within a defined period, and so do certain relief and exemption claims. If the date passes, the client is left with the assessment as it stands for the remainder of the list period. There is no application for a late appeal, no remedial work and no technical argument that recovers it. The loss is the difference between the assessment and what it should have been, multiplied by the years remaining, and on a large property or a portfolio that is a very large number for the sake of a missed date.

So the diary discipline has to be that of a law firm rather than a consultancy. Key dates recorded centrally when a property is taken on, entered by one person and checked by another, escalating reminders rather than a single prompt, a documented handover when a client or a property moves between staff, and a rule for what happens when a client does not respond to a recommendation to challenge. Silence running into an expiry date is the commonest version of this claim, and it is entirely preventable.

The other half of this profession's exposure is expectation, and the fee structure frequently creates it.

Clients engage rating advisers to reduce a liability, and fees are often geared to the saving achieved. That makes a projection a commercial document as much as a professional opinion. A client who budgeted on a projected reduction, took a lease on the basis of an expected liability, or made an investment decision on a figure that was never achievable has a complaint about advice rather than about a date. And because the fee depends on the saving, an adviser is structurally incentivised to be optimistic, which is exactly the circumstance in which caveats matter.

So projections need to be expressed as opinions with their basis visible. The comparable evidence relied on, the assumptions about the property and its use, the possibility that the valuation officer or a tribunal takes a different view, and a plain statement that an outcome cannot be guaranteed. Avoid single figures where a range is honest. And keep the file showing what was explained, because a client whose saving did not materialise will remember the headline number rather than the caveat.

A rating case is built on facts about a property, and a surprising number of those facts arrive from the occupier.

Floor areas, occupation and vacation dates, the use of each part of a property, plant and machinery present, trading figures where relevant, and whether a part is let or shared are routinely supplied by the client or taken from their records. If any of it is wrong, the challenge is built on a wrong basis, an assessment may be increased rather than reduced, a relief may be claimed that did not apply, and in some cases a client ends up with a liability they would not otherwise have had.

So the provenance of information needs recording rather than absorbing. Confirm the key facts with the client in writing and state that the advice relies on them, measure or verify areas where the case turns on them rather than accepting a schedule, flag inconsistencies rather than working around them, and record where a client has been unable or unwilling to provide something. On a portfolio this matters more, because a wrong convention applied across many properties repeats the error at every one of them.

Fee disputes are common in this profession and they have a predictable shape that is worth planning for.

Where a fee is geared to a saving, there is scope to disagree about whether a saving was achieved, when it crystallised, whether it was attributable to the adviser's work or to something else, and what the base figure was. Clients dispute, advisers invoice, and the standard response to a fee claim is a counterclaim alleging that the advice was negligent or that an opportunity was missed. That turns a recoverable fee into a notification, legal costs, an excess and a claim on the record at renewal.

So treat fee recovery as an insurance decision as well as a commercial one. Review the file before pursuing, take a view on whether the work is defensible, be clear in the engagement about how the fee is calculated and when it becomes payable, and tell your broker or insurer early rather than once a counterclaim lands. Legal expenses cover with fee recovery is worth having for exactly this, and a clear fee basis in the engagement letter prevents more disputes than any policy answers.

A missed date has no remedy, which shapes the whole placement. We are an FCA regulated broker and will not tell you we are the best choice. These are the questions that decide it.