Councils estimated to take 750 businesses to court over rates every day last year

05 August 2019 by
Councils estimated to take 750 businesses to court over rates every day last year

Councils sued around 750 businesses a day over business rates in the last financial year, researchers at Altus Group have claimed.

The figure makes up around 10% of liable businesses in the UK, averaging out at 750 summons per day across the period.

Westminster Council were found to have sent the most summons from 1 April 2018 to 31 March 2019, with 6,882 issued. The London borough was followed by Birmingham (6,166), Manchester (5,228), Liverpool (4,254) and Leeds (3,497).

Meanwhile, Richmond and Wandsworth councils were found to have issued summons to 27.6% of businesses in their constituency.

Researchers at the advisory firm were able to recover information on more than 1.7 million business across the UK - or 90% of liable firms - through the freedom of information act, and used projections to calculate the remaining 10%.

The Caterer Breakfast Briefing Email

Start the working day with The Caterer’s free breakfast briefing email

Sign Up and manage your preferences below

Check mark icon
Thank you

You have successfully signed up for the Caterer Breakfast Briefing Email and will hear from us soon!

Jacobs Media is honoured to be the recipient of the 2020 Queen's Award for Enterprise.

The highest official awards for UK businesses since being established by royal warrant in 1965. Read more.

close

Ad Blocker detected

We have noticed you are using an adblocker and – although we support freedom of choice – we would like to ask you to enable ads on our site. They are an important revenue source which supports free access of our website's content, especially during the COVID-19 crisis.

trade tracker pixel tracking