VOA launch Find Your Business Rates service

Stuart Hicks, Manchester Office, Director - Dunlop HeywoodBy Stuart Hicks, Managing Director

I don’t really see myself as a public service announcer but this latest message from the Valuation Office Agency is worth sharing.

The VOA is launching a ‘Find Your Business Rates Valuation’ service on GOV.UK in advance of the publication of the 2017 draft rating lists.

The new service has been designed to make it easier for ratepayers to use and, after consulting with various bodies, agents and LAs, the VOA hope to have come up with a simplified and user friendly system.

The site will continue to be developed over the coming months and we will release new functionality that meets our users’ needs; e.g. launching advanced search fields that can be adapted and increased depending on users’ needs.

The VOA will also provide the full rating lists and a majority of summary valuations as a downloadable dataset. This should provide a “reliable and easy alternative for any advanced bulk data users” – so they claim.

The data will be publicly available for download and is free but can only be used for business rates purposes – full terms and conditions and a link to the download will be available on https://www.gov.uk/correct-your-business-rates.