Business Rates Appeals for Occupiers
Business rates are one of your largest fixed costs, and the rateable value behind them is wrong more often than anyone admits. Ask-re handles business rates appeals for occupiers only: we work for the business in the building, never the landlord.
Trusted by occupiers across the UK for over two decades.
If your property is over-assessed, we challenge the Valuation Office Agency, reduce your rateable value and recover what you have overpaid. With the 2026 revaluation now in force, there has rarely been a better time to check your figure.
Challenge your 2026 rateable value
On 1 April 2026 a new rating list replaced the 2023 list, with rateable values based on rental levels from April 2024. Total rateable value across England and Wales rose by close to a fifth, and England's two multipliers became five. Most occupiers are now paying against a higher figure under more complicated rules, and you can only formally challenge your 2026 rateable value from April 2026 onwards. That makes now the moment to find out whether your assessment is right, and what a successful appeal could be worth.
Download our top tips PDFHow we win your business rates appeal
We run the full Check, Challenge, Appeal process on your behalf. First we confirm and correct the facts the Valuation Office Agency holds about your property: measurements, description and use. Then we build the case for a lower rateable value using genuine rental evidence and properly comparable properties. If the VOA will not agree a fair figure, we argue it at the Valuation Tribunal ourselves, with the same senior surveyor who opened your case rather than handing you off. A successful appeal does not only cut future bills, it can be backdated to recover rates you have already paid.
Nobody checks the bill. The value gets set, the demand arrives, and you pay it year after year. We're the ones who actually look, and we usually find you're paying too much.
Why you need this service
Errors are common
Your rateable value is set by the VOA from data, not a visit, so mistakes are common and can sit uncorrected for years.
You're overpaying now
Every month an over-assessment goes unchallenged you overpay, and your landlord has no reason to put it right for you.
2026 changed your bill
The 2026 revaluation reset most bills to new and often higher values, so your current figure needs checking right now.
Claim it back
A successful appeal can be backdated, recovering rates you have already paid, not only reducing the bills still to come.
Are you overpaying on your premises?
Are you overpaying on your premises?
Most occupiers never check, and most are paying too much. A quick review tells you whether your rateable value is wrong and what an appeal could be worth.
Ask-re reviewed our rateable value when we genuinely thought there was nothing to find. Andrew identified a clear over-assessment, handled the entire challenge with the Valuation Office for us, and recovered a backdated refund that covered years of overpaid bills. The whole process was painless and the saving was real.
Operations Director, retailer
We had assumed our rates bill was simply a fixed cost we had to accept. Ask-re showed us that was not the case, took our case all the way, and secured a reduction that has lowered our outgoings every year since. I only wish we had asked them to look sooner.
Director, hospitality group
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