Since the creation of the business rates system back in 1990 questions have been asked as to how these figures are determined and why valuations are based around rental figures when they are an arbitrary value and set based on an individuals ideas of a properties location, size and description. The best example of this is as a landlord who will pay a surveyor to produce a surveyors report highlighting the positives of a property and producing a rental figure near the higher end of the rental spectrum, as opposed to a tenant who will highlight the negatives and try to negotiate nearer the bottom end. The UBR system is not unlike this example, with the Valuation Officer for a district determining a hypothetical rental figure (a Rateable Value) for an area and the occupier is then entitled to challenge that figure. During this current recession period the flaws of the UBR system have become more and more apparent, the introduction of small business relief back in 2005 highlighted the unfair system that was finally being recognised by the labour government and was there to assist the small business man, since 2010 that relief has been doubled because it still didn’t alleviate the pressure and as of April 2014 an extra £1000 is also being offered by the government as again another piece of legislation that is meant to reduce the outgoing but again highlights the imperfections with this archaic and inconsistent arrangement.
It is naive not to be aware of the up and coming election and like most governments different parts of the residential and commercial parts of the country are being given help and assistance to attract voters. It must be asked why now and if the actual help is the full extent of the assistance that could be offered.
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