Our rates bill went up again and the energy contract renewed at a number nobody agreed to.
There is money sitting in your overheads. Rates assessments that are wrong, energy contracts that rolled, suppliers billing for what they did not deliver. We go and get it back. None of this is clever. It is reading, measuring and correspondence, done properly and in the right order, on costs that most businesses treat as fixed because nobody has ever gone and looked.
Dinmore Bell recovers money already sitting in a business’s overheads: business rates challenges, energy billing and contract recovery, and supplier overbilling. It coordinates relief claims and acts on the commercial and procedural side, instructing chartered tax advisers where a claim requires regulated tax advice.
How we own it
Business rates
Assessment review, challenge and appeal across every site, including empty property and reoccupation positions. Most of what is recoverable is decided on facts rather than on valuation opinion: floor areas that no longer match the building, plant that has been removed, a mezzanine taken out, a yard sold off. The Check stage handles those, and it must be completed before a challenge can be made. Across a multi-site estate one measurement error repeated in eight places is the single most common recovery we find.
Energy and utilities
Contract audit, billing reconstruction, ombudsman complaints and renegotiation at renewal rather than after it. Estimated readings that ran for years after a meter exchange, standing charges applied to a supply that no longer exists, a contract that rolled at a rate nobody agreed, capacity charges for capacity that was never needed. Reconstructing an account means rebuilding it from meter data and contract terms rather than accepting the supplier’s ledger, and it is where the recoverable sums usually are.
Supplier overbilling
Line-by-line reconciliation against contract terms. Recovery of what was charged and never owed. Uplifts applied outside the mechanism the contract allows, rates that quietly moved at renewal, volumes billed that were never delivered, minimum commitments enforced against a contract that does not contain one. The work is arithmetic and reading, and it produces a number that is either owed or not.
The audit, and what it looks at
We start with twelve to twenty-four months of actual invoices and the contracts they were issued under, not a summary from the finance system. The two are compared line by line. What comes out is a schedule showing each cost head, what the contract permits, what was charged, and the difference. Where there is no difference we say so and move on, which matters as much as finding one: a business that knows a cost head has been checked can stop worrying about it.
Escalation that actually works
A supplier ignores a complaint and answers a claim. The difference is usually the schedule attached to it. Where a supplier will not engage, the routes are real and we use them: the relevant ombudsman scheme for energy, formal deadlock correspondence, and where the sum justifies it a letter before action with the reconstruction attached. Most matters settle when the arithmetic is in front of somebody with authority.
Reliefs, coordinated
Relief claims are coordinated rather than advised on. We identify where a relief may be available, assemble the evidence and the documentation the claim needs, and instruct chartered tax advisers to take the technical position. That division is deliberate. The evidence gathering and the project management is most of the work and none of the regulated part, and keeping the two separate means the technical opinion comes from somebody qualified to give it.
The sequence, and why order matters
Recovery works in an order. Establish what the contract or the assessment actually says, then establish what was charged, then quantify the difference, then choose the route. Going straight to the complaint without the reconstruction produces a holding response and a weaker position later. Going to renewal without the audit means renegotiating from the supplier’s numbers. The order is not procedure for its own sake; it is what decides whether the money comes back.
Where a specialist is needed
Regulated tax advice is given by chartered tax advisers, instructed by us and working to an agreed scope. A complex rating valuation is run with a chartered rating surveyor. Where a recovery needs proceedings, solicitors are instructed. What we hold is the evidence, the commercial position, the correspondence and the timetable, and we do not opine on matters that belong to a regulated adviser.
Where specialists come in
We coordinate relief claims and act on the commercial and procedural side. We do not provide regulated tax advice; where a claim requires it, chartered tax advisers are instructed.
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What a fully loaded General Counsel actually costs
The comparison is not our fee against an hourly rate. It is our fee against the hire you would otherwise make.
- How do you charge for cost recovery work?
- It sits inside a fixed monthly retainer alongside the rest of the function, rather than as a percentage of what is recovered. That removes the incentive to chase marginal claims and means we will tell you when a cost head has been checked and is clean.
- Is this tax advice?
- No. Business rates challenges, energy recovery and supplier reconciliation are commercial and procedural work. Where a relief claim needs a regulated tax opinion, chartered tax advisers are instructed and take the technical position.
- How far back can a recovery go?
- It depends on the cost. Rates recovery follows the rating list the assessment sits in; billing and supplier claims are governed by the contract and by the limitation position. We establish the recoverable window before doing the work rather than after.
- Do I have to keep paying while a rates challenge runs?
- Yes. A challenge does not suspend liability, and withholding invites recovery action on a debt not yet shown to be wrong. The bill is paid and any overpayment is recovered when the case concludes.
- What does an energy billing reconstruction involve?
- Rebuilding the account from meter data and the contract terms rather than accepting the supplier ledger, then quantifying the difference. Estimated billing after a meter exchange, standing charges on dead supplies and rates that moved at renewal are the recurring findings.
- What if the supplier simply refuses to engage?
- The routes are real and we use them: the relevant ombudsman scheme for energy, formal deadlock correspondence, and a letter before action with the reconstruction attached where the sum justifies it. Most matters settle once the arithmetic reaches somebody with authority.
- Is this worth doing for a single site?
- Sometimes, and usually on energy and supplier billing rather than rates. Rates arithmetic works best across an estate, because the same error tends to repeat. On energy, a single site with a rolled contract or an estimated billing period can be worth recovering on its own.
- How long does recovery take?
- Supplier and energy claims typically resolve in weeks to a few months. Rates is slower: the Valuation Office has eighteen months to answer a challenge, and an appeal to the tribunal adds to that, so plan for a year or more on the rates side.