Rates Audit

Rates bills are unlike any other transaction that goes through the books. In most cases, due to the long-winded appeals process, a rates bill often amounts to little more than a demand for payment on account. The final liability is dependent upon long-term retrospective corrections being accurately implemented, making account reconciliation difficult. This difficulty is exacerbated by the fact that financial accounting systems are not geared to the required reconciliation process.

Most ratepayers rely on spreadsheets and ad-hoc reporting processes between property, finance, billing authorities and rating agent to manage this problem. Lack of ownership, poor communication and data integrity issues frequently undermine the accuracy of the accounting process.

An audit verifies your true liability for a given period (by rate year), taking full account of occupancy dates, RV alterations, exemptions, empty/void periods etc, and compares this with what you were charged, what you actually paid and what was refunded net of interest.

Undertaking a full rates audit requires access to certain information (property records, billing and payments history etc). Goodman Nash has a dedicated data collection team to assist in this collation process. We conduct the audit at our own offices in order to minimise disruption to the client.

With dynamic portfolios (frequent additions/deletions/alterations) and frequent RV changes the opportunities for things to go wrong are rife.

Audits are offered on a contingency fee basis, so costs are entirely funded through savings achieved.

Here are a few examples of ways in which money can be recovered.