Gordon Heath’s New Year Message
Dear reader,
Since my last letter, I have chaired the November meeting of the IRRV Council, then over to Roscommon in Ireland to promote the REVASE learning material to Institute of Professional Auctioneers and Valuers members and back home to attend the Association of Chief Estate Surveyors lunch in the splendid surroundings of the Marble Hall, City Hall, Cardiff. Next in the diary was the RICS Rating Diploma Holders’ lunch at the RAF Club in Piccadilly, London, followed rapidly by the IRRV East Midlands dinner in Chesterfield at the excellent Casa Hotel.
In early December, I was delighted to spend a few days in Edinburgh, where I attended a lively meeting of the Scottish Association Forum, followed by their Annual Reception. It gave me a great opportunity to talk to at least some of our Scottish members and understand more about their perspective on benefits, revenues and valuation. Also, Edinburgh was at its best, with the Christmas market in full swing.
Turning to the serious matter of the future of rating throughout the UK, the Barclay Review has been a great start in Scotland and recent developments in Northern Ireland are very interesting too. In addition to these, I am aware of various suggestions to improve the rating system, and the list below is reproduced from my “Rating matters” feature published in the December edition of the Institute‘s Valuer magazine. I stress that none of these are yet IRRV policy and I do not even agree with all of them. What are your views on the following ideas and do you have any other suggestions? Here goes:
1. Restore the rights of the Billing Authority to make proposals to enter new properties and to make alterations following a relevant Valuation Tribunal decision.
2. Restore the rights of the Billing Authority to be party to agreements and to appear in Valuation Tribiunals.
3. Create the right for ratepayers to appeal to the Valuation Tribunal in respect of disputes, reliefs and exemptions.
4. Enhance the powers of the Billing Authority to inspect property to be consistent with the requirements of Billing Authority Reports to the Valuation Office Agency.
5. Remove the fees from the Valuation Tribunal.
6. Enable Billing Authorities to agree equated dates.
7. Transfer the requirement to serve completion notices to the Valuation Office Agency and allow subsequent corrections.
8. Make all mandatory reliefs discretionary.
9. Merge small business and rural relief.
10. Limit small business and rural relief to 50%.
11. Merge business centres into single assessments with a percentage discount to reflect vacancy rates.
12. Stop demerging offices/shops and associated car spaces.
13. Merge all parts of a property that are occupied by one ratepayer within the curtilage of the building.
14. Review all reliefs and exemptions.
15. Extend empty relief to 12 months, with no further relief unless the property has been occupied for at least 12 months.
16. Move to three yearly revaluations.
17. Limit the increase in the multiplier to CPI, not RPI.
18. Localise the setting of the multiplier.
19. Abolish committal to prison for non-payment.
20. Introduce an internet transaction tax, collected nationally but distributed locally in the same way as the central list.
21. Transfer all MoD property into the central list, because the billing authority has no power to inspect and no planning rights.
22. Take the Valuation Office Agency out of Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs.
23. Stop using the Government Gateway in relation to Check, Challenge, Appeal.
24. Allow rating agents to access the appeal process on behalf of their clients in the same way that accountants act on behalf of their clients.
That should give you something to think about, and of course some of the above ideas are contradictory - but please make your views known to the IRRV by emailing me on gordon.heath@talk21.com or the Chief Executive, David Magor, on david.magor@irrv.org.uk
Yours,
Gordon
Gordon Heath BSc IRRV (Hons) is President of the Institute
