Supreme Court agrees to hear £500m dispute over business rates and ATM facilities

The Supreme Court has granted the Valuation Office Agency permission to appeal in a long-running dispute over the rating of ATM machines and similar facilities, it has been reported.

In Cardtronics Europe Ltd & Others v Chris Sykes & Others (Valuation Officers) [2018] EWCA Civ 2472 the Court of Appeal ruled that ATMs inside and outside of stores should not be assessed for additional business rates.

This decision overturned the ruling of the Upper Tribunal in January 2017 that made a distinction between ATMs inside a building and outside, and which had said that the sites of ATMs located within premises should not be assessed for business rates, but those ATM sites outside a shop or store should, real estate advisers Colliers International said.

The company predicted that it could take another two to three years before the Supreme Court resolves the issue, “adding to the costs of the supermarkets, in an already difficult market for retailers, as well as a flood of appeals that will over burden the already struggling CCA appeals system”.

Colliers, which estimates that around £500m is at stake in the dispute, warned that it could lead to some stores removing their ATM machines. “Each ATM site attracts an average rates liability of around £4000,” it said. “As the appellants were successful, the refunds due to the supermarkets would be in the region of £496m. The Court of Appeal had also ruled that the VOA must lift the stay on all of the appeals that have snarled up the system for the duration of the case and refused the VOA permission to appeal against its decision.”

John Webber, Head of Business Rates at Colliers International, said: “Not only is this an enormous waste of tax payers’ money to allow the case to roll on, but it could snatch away from hard pressed retailers the much-needed refunds they have been waiting for in this period of economic uncertainty. At the very least it will delay them receiving anything for another two to three years, and that’s only if they are successful.”  

The firm pointed out that because the timescale for the final decision may go beyond the 2021 Rating List, those supermarkets, ATM operators and other vending operators would need to lodge checks and challenges through the “calamitous” CCA  system to protect their position on the 2017 Rating List, or they would miss out on four years of refunds.

“This will lead to the panic to submit tens of thousands of appeals to CCA, the Government’s appeal system, immediately, adding further to the burden on a massively overstretched and under resourced system, already struggling to cope with the appeals it is dealing with at the moment,” Webber said.

See also: Rating ATMs and similar facilities - Cornerstone Barristers’ Steven Gasztowicz QC analyses the Court of Appeal judgment.