Can Zellick make the government listen?
Your interview with Professor Graham Zellick (24 October, p86) gave a fascinating insight into a man who has served the Valuation Tribunal for England well during his time at the helm, but it was his views on the failings of the current rating system that I found most interesting.
To hear a senior member of the judiciary, with wide experience of a range of English tribunals, describe the rates system as “bonkers” and “defective” should drive home to the government just how much of a mess it is presently in.
Particularly noteworthy were his comments regarding the lack of transparency in the system, a situation he described as being unprecedented, unique and wrong in taxation. The fact that he places the blame for the high number of appeals on this lack of transparency shows the urgent need for reform of this facet of the system.
For those of us advising clients on their business rates liabilities, this is nothing new. Businesses and rating surveyors have been calling for greater transparency for many years, but the government seems doggedly reticent to enact any beneficial reform.
Indeed, by using the stick of fines and charges to reduce appeals rather than the carrot of greater transparency, the Enterprise Bill now working its way through parliament clearly demonstrates the government’s belligerent attitude to the present situation. If it won’t listen to the businesses that pay rates, and won’t listen to the surveyors that navigate their way through the system on a daily basis, perhaps the government will now listen to Professor Zellick – someone with no agenda, no bias and no axe to grind.
The business rates sections of the Enterprise Bill must be reformed to require the Valuation Office Agency to share the rental evidence on which its valuations are based, a move that would drastically reduce the number of appeals submitted and the administration costs of the tax.
Such an approach would go a long way towards the government’s ambition when launching its review of business rates last year “to make the business rates system simpler, more transparent and more responsive to economic circumstances”.
Jerry Schurder
Head of business rates
Gerald Eve
Pearl’s setbacks are a lesson to us all
I loved the article about David Pearl, covering his massively successful career, starting with virtually a street food stall in the form of a pop-up estate agency (24 October, p39).
And so successful it was, poor David was left exposed to the property crash of 2008-09.
I know of not one person who could have forecast how steep that decline was to be – almost a sky-dive.
The crash caught us all out, and so who can blame David?
That said, all the more credit should be given to his comeback – based on a complete refusal to fail in whatever he does.
I have admired him from afar, and had the pleasure of dealing with his team first-hand.
And with his new focus on forecasting ahead on the subject of running what he is going to buy, I cannot see him being exposed to any market changes, however substantial.
The moral we should all learn from his experience, is that when riding the wave, we need to look forward at how we will run and profit from what we are buying, maintaining caution and looking out for the wind getting up and causing, in a worst-case scenario, a tsunami.
Anthony Lorenz
Managing director
The Lorenz Consultancy
Solution to end-of-lease scraps is here
On the surface, Peter Bill’s article on the death of dilapidations makes for a depressing read with which I don’t disagree (10 October, p72).
Dilapidations’ days are numbered, but we already have a solution that avoids end-of-lease scraps between landlord and tenant over, very often, a handful of disputed items.
I am one of only nine RICS accredited independent experts in the UK for dilapidations disputes. Our job is to provide a swift, cost-effective and binding decision on the dispute.
In fact, we believe that expert determination is so effective it should be written into all new leases. It is a “better, cheaper and faster” way of dealing with disputes and it has been a long time coming.
Neil Gilbert
Head of dilapidations consultancy
Tuffin Ferraby Taylor
