Rates system "could collapse" if not fixed

Thursday 02 November 2017

The current Parish rates system is “broken” and will end in a costly collapse if action is not taken now, the island’s most senior assessor has said.

In his 2017 Annual Report, the Chairman of the Association of Jersey Rates Assessors, Edward Trevor, rallied against what he described as a “grossly unfair” system.

“Having dealt with rates in the UK on behalf of ratepayers initially and then spending about 37 years as either a member or chairman of an appeals panel I now consider that the system here is broken or close to it,” he wrote.

He argued that there was currently little consistency in the approaches of different parishes, resulting in some islanders paying too much. 

Pictured: Mr Trevor says that rates assessments for St Helier are a far larger burden than in other parishes.

This year alone, Mr Trevor said that the Rates Appeal Board heard three appeals – “the first for some time” – from islanders who all won. A resulting report criticised the fact that there was “no single objective process followed by all parishes.”

According to Mr Trevor, St Helier residents had been particularly disadvantaged in recent years. Rates assessors also struggle under the burden of a job that is “hugely more extensive than in any other parish”, with 20,000 assessments to undertake. “It is obvious to anyone with an ounce of grey matter that rents have changed over the last 15 years and that prime areas have moved particularly in St Helier. On this basis I cannot understand why the Constables have asked for written proof that this has happened and that the Treasury had to spend, waste, public money on employing a firm of accountants to confirm this.”

He added: “Currently there are ratepayers paying disproportionately too much or too little and this is grossly and not in accordance with the Law.   The Law does not allow changes due to prime positions moving as it says, “properties with similar attributes should have similar assessments” to paraphrase and at the time of the last revaluation and now those properties did and do have similar attributes.”

Pictured: Mr Trevor wants steps to be taken to ensure a consistent approach across parishes.

In December last year, the States agreed that a revaluation should be undertaken, but Mr Trevor argued that subsequent efforts have been stifled by parish Constables. They currently sit on a Supervisory Committee, acting as the body with powers to ensure that the law is maintained. 

Mr Trevor complained, however, that it should instead be the Association of Jersey Rates Assessors, given their expertise in the area. Moreover, he took issue with the approach adopted by the current committee:

“Recent experience shows that the Supervisory Committee takes the easy way out and effectively shrugs its shoulders when problems are put to it. Without change the rates system will collapse within a few years and it will be expensive for both the Parishes and the States.”

Having considered the issues, he’s now calling for reform. He’d like to see reviews undertaken with two assessors from the home parish and one from a separate one to ensure consistency is maintained throughout the island.

Under Mr Trevor’s proposals, rates would only be charged to the owners, not occupiers – other than those with a contract lease – and there would be a change in the law so that islanders on Income Support have both their rates and rent paid direct to their landlord.

“These small steps would lessen considerably the work in the Parish offices and ensure that there was a considerable lessening of debts owed to both Parishes and the States as well as landlords.”