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Bailiffs sent to over 40,000 firms to collect business rates

Councils in England and Wales called in the bailiffs on nearly 41,000 companies to chase payments for higher business rates, according to researchers’ estimates.

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Research published by Altus Group, which advises companies on business rates, uncovers how many British firms have been struggling to keep up payments since a revaluation hiked business rates in April last year.

 

Altus used a Freedom of Information (FoI) request to yield data for about 1.37 million business premises in 247 councils across England and Wales, for the five months after the revaluation kicked in.

 

The FoI request showed that 28,355 premises liable for business rates were referred to bailiff enforcement during that period.

 

Based on this data, Altus Group made estimates to account for the 1.98 million liable business properties for the total billing councils in England and Wales, bringing the total, estimated number of firms referred to bailiffs in this period to 40,965.

 

The study showed Hounslow and Lewisham had the highest referrals; bailiffs were called into enforce overdue business rates debts in one in 11 premises in these regions.

 

Businesses in Hounslow saw rateable values soar by 25.09 percent, and by 31.83 percent in Lewisham.

 

The government’s rationale for introducing the revaluation was to account for property price changes during the past seven years.

 

Alex Probyn, president of business rates at Altus Group, said: “It isn’t only those whose values have increased that are struggling. The current, deeply unfair, system of transitional adjustment severely limits the amount by which bills can go down, meaning many businesses are paying disproportionately high bills in locations where local economies are underperforming and values are falling.”

 

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