The Winners and Losers of the 2023 Rates Revaluation

The government’s 2023 rates revaluation came into force on 1st April 2023. In short, there is one clear winner emerging from this process, and that is retail.

The retail sector has seen an average drop of 10% in rateable value. No other sector has shown an average decrease in list value. This is evidence that the government has seen how retail businesses have been struggling and continue to struggle to survive. Not only has this sector benefitted from significantly reduced RVs but these reductions have been compounded by the removal of downward transition. This means that any reduction in the new list value will come into effect immediately, rather than as a stepped decrease over time.

This might sound like bad news for other sectors. In fact, there is one major factor that benefits everyone and that is the decision to freeze the multiplier at 51.2p for large businesses and 49.9p for smaller businesses. If the multiplier had increased, it may well have wiped out any advantage gained by a business from a reduction in their rateable value and would have compounded increases across all sectors.

The real loser from revaluation has been the industrial sector which has suffered an average increase in rateable value of 27%. This reflects high rents in the industrial sector at the time of the antecedent date in April 2021. However, the government has introduced upward transitional relief caps at 5%, 10% and 15% for small, medium and large properties to help support businesses with these significant increases. The caps will spread the burden of increases so that businesses will not have to pay at the new level straight away.

If you are unhappy about your new rateable value, we urge you to get in touch so we can make sure your assets have been correctly valued.