Business Rates

Bilts1984

Hello all,
Myself and my fiance run a hair salon/beauty room. We had a letter from the council confirming that due to Covid19 our 2020/2021 buisness rates had been amended to show zero..
 Great news!! However,

We enrolled with a company about a year ago called Rva surveyors who assist in reducing business rates and you then pay them an annual fee which is maybe a fifth of what you would normally pay the local council. We dis this when we opened which was great, but then last month received a bill for the next 12 month financial year to which we then disputed as we wouldn't have to pay anyway due to the government's announcement of business rates relief therefore why would we pay for a service that we wouldn't have to pay for regardless to their assistance. 

They have emailed back as below:

I would like to explain the reasoning behind our invoice.

 

The reduction successfully carried out by RVA prior to the current pandemic increased your eligibility for Small Business Rates Relief (SBRR) as this is classed as a mandatory relief it will remain active on your account as per the government website. As your account was already reduced to a zero balance due to the work carried out by RVA, you are not entitled to the relief put into place by the government nor do you need to be. As the relief is only there for retail businesses with a rates payable and for that reason your invoice remains payable and overdue.

Please can someone advise us, do we have a point here or are we obliged to pay for a service that wasnt required. 

Many thanks in advance.

 

Paul_01

What’s your rateable value?

Jeremy535897

This has arisen before. One thing these people are extremely good at is making customers liable to pay them. I doubt you will have any option but to pay.

Paul_01

It depends what the RV is. If it’s £12k or under then the rates are zero due to SBRR, which the company got for them. 

Your business rates bill will tell you which relief you are getting. If it’s SBRR then the company have a right to bill you, if it’s retail relief and they didn’t secure that for you then you would owe them nothing. 

If it is a valid invoice, you can ask them to reduce the invoice due to the retail relief situation, but they are not obliged to. 

Jeremy535897

I doubt they will. In their eyes, they did the work and got you SBRR. They weren't to know a legislative change might make that temporarily irrelevant.

Did you get the small business grant of £10,000?