Services

Business Rates Services

Solving rates challenges with unrivalled expertise

Increasingly complex, expensive and difficult to forecast, business rates require specialist knowledge. Our Business Rates team is one of the UK's largest and longest established, bringing specialist expertise to every instruction. 

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The business rates strategy your portfolio deserves

Our purpose is to act as your long-term strategic partner, using in-depth technical knowledge of rating law and practice to proactively identify opportunities to limit your liabilities and save your business money. We excel at designing and implementing effective mitigation strategies and rates mitigation schemes.

We put clients at the core of everything we do. Our priority is ensuring your portfolio liabilities are fully understood, expertly managed, and consistently mitigated. We pride ourselves on actively supporting the strategic objectives of the investors, developers, and major industrial and corporate clients we serve nationwide.

As true business rates experts, we are forensically focused on achieving the best possible results. Unlike others, we never outsource our critical work, relying instead on our in-depth proprietary data. As part of a major banking group, our entire process is underpinned by the highest levels of due diligence and compliance. This robust, transparent approach is the foundation of our many successful, long-term client relationships, securing a significant business rates reduction for them year after year.

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  • 150+ years of UK property experience

  • 50 offices across the UK

  • Signatory of the Real Estate Balance CEO Commitments to Diversity

  • 4,000+ real estate experts with presence in 30 countries

Featured services

Rates Mitigation

Active management of your vacant and under-used property is now essential to minimising rates liabilities, given recent changes to Empty Rates Relief. We proactively and continuously monitor your portfolio, applying new legislation and incentives to substantially reduce your business rates outside of the traditional appeal process.

Historic Rates Audit

Our proprietary databases enable a forensic investigation of all your past and current rating liabilities, even for properties you no longer own. We scrutinise every assessment for multiple error types, reconciling them to secure overpayments and find missed relief opportunities by correctly applying all relevant case law and legislation.

Rating Appeals

We align our appeal strategy directly with your strategic goals, whether you prioritise cashflow, future mitigation, or challenging valuations. Our expertise spans all core property sectors, from single high-value assets to complex national portfolios, ensuring we develop and present the strongest tactical case for the best possible result at appeal.

Rates Management

Our Rates Payment Management (RPM) function is staffed by experts recruited from Local Authority Business Rate teams. Unlike standard administrators, they use full payment visibility to proactively interrogate rating issues, ensuring all information is shared and used to manage every rate payment to the advantage of your business.

Intermittent Occupation

For properties vacant longer than three (or six for Industrial) months, intermittent occupation is an excellent way to mitigate business rates. We introduce a temporary occupier for the minimum statutory period, resetting your Empty Rates Relief entitlement, and repeat the process until the property is re-let or disposed of.

Consultancy

We offer a wider strategic consultancy service to support specific needs. This includes managing one-off special projects, dealing with government consultations and completion notices, and supporting new build or refurbishment projects. We can also assist you with draft list representations for upcoming list publications.

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Contact our team

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Bruce Wilson
Senior Director – National Head of Rating
+442039933799
Jessica Wellfair
Head of Rates Management – Rating
+44 1217561927
Steven Turton
Senior Director – Rating
+44 11 4299 1892
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