gva.co.uk/forensicaudit

Uncovering value in property

Our national team of auditors work on your behalf to uncover lost savings on property rates. Using a “forensic” approach to auditing, which requires minimal input from you to support the process, we can release real value for your organisation.

We carry out a detailed audit of your historic business rate liabilities and consider whether there is the opportunity to apply specialist mitigation initiatives that have been missed previously.

Our Forensic Audit team provides innovative solutions to minimising property costs and has facilitated the recovery of millions of pounds of overpaid business rates.

Errors and anomalies can lie undetected for years. Understanding, interpreting and challenging primary legislation, statutory instruments, case law, practice/guidance notes is fundamental to our success.

We have a dedicated team of specialist auditors and data analysts with background and experience in working for Local Authorities. Combining financial and legal expertise with investigative and diagnostic skills, we understand that there’s more at stake than just money.

Recovery auditing is recognised as best practice by many of the UK’s leading organisations for reducing erroneous payments, improving processes, and enhancing performance. Your entire business rates audit is managed by our auditors; experienced and trained professionals working across a wide array of industries at all times sensitive to clients’ requirements and priorities.

Every business is different and requires an individual approach. The legal framework governing the calculation and collection of business rates is complex.

Our audit processes identify real recovery opportunities and concentrate on two specific areas:-

• Review of Valuation Office Agency (VOA) Rating List

• Review of Billing Authority (BA) process and procedures in respect of liability and payments

Bilfinger GVA Forensic Audits are entirely self-funding and offered on a risk free contingency basis, with no up-front or fixed costs. Our audits are reported on a case by case basis in a simple and concise fashion so that you can see the progress being made and the value being released to your business.

Underpinning our audit capability is a market leading software system developed in-house, allowing us to interrogate vast amounts of data, quickly identify recovery opportunities and validate complex liability calculations accurately and efficiently.

Our audits, many of which are concluded within a 3 month timeframe, are the most rigorous in the market today.

The Bilfinger GVA Forensic Audit team has recovered £150 million in 4 years.

Working for landlord/investor and developer clients, we have successfully challenged BA and VOA procedures and so far recovered over £50 million for business.

Working with a range of public sector organisations, we have carried out historic portfolio audits and recovered £35 million making a huge difference to hard pressed public sector budgets.

Working on a large national distribution centre for a leading High Street Retailer we recovered a retrospective charge of £770,000. We have been retained by many similar organisations wanting to do the same.

For a corporate client in the telecommunications sector we challenged the existing BA & VOA approach and recovered a historic overpayment of over £1 million on a single property.

Across other markets we have helped a leading UK Energy Company to mitigate a retrospective charge of £734,000.

We have recovered £395,000 for a Midlands University by identifying an inaccurate list alteration and £166,000 for a client in the performing arts sector.

Our many successes in the Health sector include a single recovery of £320,000 for a well-known hospital in London and £341,000 for a trust in the Home Counties via a correction of the transitional calculation. We successfully challenged the basis of the charge for a hospital in the East Midlands resulting in a recovery of £255,000 and identified an overpayment of £210,000 for a longstanding trust client in Birmingham.

These are a small selection of the recoveries secured by the Bilfinger GVA Forensic Audit team for clients across a wide range of sectors and industries.

Landlord/Investor & developers recovered

£50 million

National distribution centre single recovery

£770,000

Public sector recovered

£35 million

Telecommunications sector single recovery over

£1 million

Education sector single recovery

£395,000

Energy sector single recovery

£734,000

Health sector single recovery

£320,000

08449 02 03 04gva.co.uk/forensicaudit

Andy Gray Director

andrew.gray@gva.co.uk 0121 609 8307 07904 567 007

Rob Gurney Smith Director

robert.gurney-smith@gva.co.uk 0161 956 4422 07568 322840

Mike Gill Senior Director

mike.gill@gva.co.uk 0121 609 8319 07767 615 083

Birmingham

Bristol

Cardiff

Dublin

Edinburgh

Glasgow

Leeds

Liverpool

London

Manchester

Newcastle

Published by Bilfinger GVA.65 Gresham Street, London EC2V 7NQ.©2015 Copyright Bilfinger GVA

Bilfinger GVA is the trading name ofGVA Grimley Limited and is a principalshareholder of GVA Worldwide Limited,an independent partnership of propertyadvisers operating globally. Bilfinger GVAis a Bilfinger Real Estate company.gvaworldwide.com