WITH the hot topic of sporting rates still firmly on the table, sporting rates specialist Peter Wilkinson has joined Savills.

Peter with lead sporting appeals and assist on rating matters throughout Scotland. He comes directly from the Scottish Assessors Association where he worked on both the 2010 and 2017 revaluations, specialising in telecommunications, fishings and shooting rights.

He has particular expertise in the recent re-introduction of deer forest and shooting right entries into the valuation roll and has valued all of the initial 'Phase One' entries raised throughout Ayrshire. As a consequence he has an intimate knowledge of all matters leading up to the currently adopted valuation scheme and of the issues that now need to be addressed.

There are some 10,300 entries raised in Phase One. Phase Two entries are to be raised before March 31, 2018 so they may take effect from the required date of April 1, 2017.

Savills head of rural professional services in Scotland, Hugo Struthers, said: “We are fortunate to have secured Peter’s particular expertise at such a critical time, when thousands of sporting rates notices are arriving on the door mats of rural businesses, a huge number of which are likely to contain anomalies. The rural sector needs be proactive in addressing these as the Sporting revaluation is relying on the appeals system to ensure payments are fair and equitable”.

Speaking of the task ahead, Peter said: “This new valuation scheme has been drafted and implemented under considerable pressure by an already stretched SAA. Several assessor regions are considerably behind in their entry raising exercise. This is a new and challenging scheme of valuation for the assessor, so far executed under very short timescales and with limited quality information being made available. As a consequence several short cuts and assumptions have been made.”

“It is widely mooted that up to 80% of entries raised are likely to contain an error. Exactly what these might be made up of can only be clarified after an initial pre appeal appraisal. There are other key issues that must be addressed through the appeal process. These will potentially have wide ranging and long term implications for all landowners. As such it is imperative that these issues are fully scrutinised through the appeal process.”

According to Savills, landowners need to take proactive steps to identify anomalies: they need to gather together all valuation notices received, along with the information provided in their information request forms, and finally they need to investigate how the immediate liability can be mitigated by the available reliefs and processes.