Conducting a Business Rates Review

Identifying and validating new or additional rateable value is costly and time-consuming for any local authority. Since the pandemic hit workloads have increased and there may have been potential team restructures. But it doesn’t always have to be a burden to conduct these reviews, the ability to outsource these reviews could be extremely beneficial to a council.

The Business Rates Review (or RV Finder) service from Liberata identifies additional items that are either unrated or under-rated and gathers the right evidence to successfully get the hereditament rated via the Valuation Office (VO). The new Electronic Billing Authority Reports (EBAR) process has placed a further burden on local authorities to comply with the new guidelines and our service is set up to support this exact process.

Through our RV Finder service, we review and identify hereditaments that are not currently rated or misclassified.

How Does Liberata Conduct a Review?

  • We identify, investigate and validate new rateable value or additional growth on current rateable hereditaments
  • Then we will run a fully managed review including canvassing, outbound calling, full customer service support, valuation office administration, visits to prospects and a full reporting suite
  • We will exclude cases that are already on the council’s radar
  • Finally, we provide a complete validation of your current business rates base

Importantly, we don’t work with rating agents so there is no conflict of interest in terms of new prospects found.

No-Risk Basis

Liberata’s Business Rate Review service is a no-risk solution. Designed around your needs to maximise revenue with minimal risk, you only pay a percentage of the additional RV found once confirmed by the VO.

You can generate further additional income by incorporating our Empty Homes and SPD Review services when reviewing business rates. What’s more, all these reviews can be procured via the Government’s G Cloud 12 Framework.

As we move towards Rates Retention, you have nothing to lose in requesting a personalised business case for your council.

If you would like to learn more then please contact us.

See how Liberata can help your organisation.

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As a Council we are focused on ensuring that the services delivered are both sustainable and of the highest quality. We are delighted to be working with Liberata to help deliver these services on behalf of our residents and businesses. Liberata stood out with its ability to drive transformational change and improve customer access and digital services.
Richard Baker
Welwyn Hatfield Borough Council
Borough of Broxbourne
Liberata is the ideal delivery partner to help us achieve our aims, whilst ensuring we can drive down processing times and improve the service for our customers. Council tax and business rates collection will improve, ensuring that we have the funds to deliver the vital services that have a positive impact on residents’ lives. We look forward to working closely in partnership with Liberata to help achieve our aims
Rebecca Keene
Broxbourne Borough Council
Eastleigh Borough Council has worked with Liberata for a number of years who undertake the council's empty home reviews, and I must say, their service exceeded all expectations. From start to finish, they demonstrated professionalism, efficiency, and a genuine commitment to addressing this critical issue in our community. Thanks to Liberata, the council has been able to maximise our empty home bonus year on year. This positive impact on our community cannot be overstated.
Kerrie Thomas
Eastleigh Borough Council
The RV Finder service from Liberata has really helped us ensure that our data is as accurate as possible and, when the VOA has processed the outstanding cases, I fully expect to see more than £1,000,000 of additional RV. The “risk and reward” model works well and the Council only has to pay for their success and the service is something that we will use on a regular basis.
Steve King
Leicester City Council
Liberata has been empowered to create a seamless integration with technology to digitally transform the Revenues and Benefits service whilst trying to protect local jobs. The joint strategy has helped to deliver innovative solutions that have exceeded expectations, whilst providing savings to the authority. This surge in digital engagement has helped deliver strong year one outturn with electronic billing and the technology will enable us to show improvements in the benefits speed of processing and in Council Tax processing of moves, discounts and exemptions.
Andy Stevens
Swindon Borough Council
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