Rate-cuts boss on back foot as evidence piles up
The boss of the company I exposed last week for an alleged business rates reduction scam that preyed on small businesses has offered to investigate its sales reps.
The move from Stephan Hughes of RVA Surveyors came after I presented him with another batch of complaints.
Despite its name, RVA does not carry out surveys, it achieves rates reductions with a single letter to a council.
It can do this because businesses with a rateable value of less than £12,000 should be automatically zero-rated.
Julie Yorke runs The Little Gem gift shop in Southampton and last year agreed to a visit from RVA after “constant cold calling”.
“They said they were surveyors and that I had overpaid my business rates and that government legislation meant they could get me a refund on my previous year’s payment,” she said.
“Once I had received my cheque from the council, all I needed to do was pay RVA 40% of my refund.”
Julie was then stunned when she received an invoice for more than £4,000 because RVA never carried out a survey.
“They just filled in a form, which had I known I could have done myself,” she said.
Worse, she was told that she was tied into paying RVA yearly until 2022. She is adamant that she would never knowingly have signed a fiveyear contract because at any time her landlord can give her a month’s notice to leave. Pippa Simpson runs The Crown Inn in Sydenham, Oxfordshire, and says “unfortunately” her partner agreed to a visit from RVA and she ended up signing their contract. “I didn’t have the chance to read it through thoroughly,” she said. Begrudgingly she paid RVA’s invoice for 45% of the cut in her rates bill when the local council confirmed it should be zero-rated. “I thought once it’s paid, they will go away as we’d only signed for one year,” Pippa said. “But they have just sent me another invoice for a saving on the business rates for 2018/2019 – which is £2,181.60 plus VAT – even though as a small business we are exempt and so are due to pay nothing. “They entirely misrepresented what their services entailed and how long it would last, I would never sign a fiveyear contract.” RVA is based in Manchester and is run by 53-year-old Mr Hughes, who has hired law firm Gateley Plc to act on his behalf. The lawyers told me that RVA is “currently exploring whether to appoint an independent investigator to consider these complaints”.