NEXUS is an award winning software solution that automates the process of identifying council tax and commercial properties that are missing from either the rating list or council tax banding list.

It draws from a variety of datasets including online property listings and directories and cross references this data against the current rating list and council tax banding list to identify discrepancies.

The Technology
Used by over 60 Local Authorities and with over 2,500 properties having been identified as not having paid tax so far, NEXUS incorporates unique inbuilt mapping software to identify the location of missing properties and assessments.

NEXUS works by displaying a series of matches that represent where either a commercial or domestic property exists on one or more datasets but not on either the rating list or council tax banding list. This indicates a potential match on a missing property or assessment that a Local Authority will be given to review. It is an effective audit tool for revenue teams to ensure they have accurately identified all domestic and commercial properties in their area liable to pay tax.

NEXUS business support team
NEXUS is accessed via a secure portal by the Destin Solutions Business Support team, who are responsible for finding potential missing properties on behalf of our Local Authority clients. The team carry out a number of checks to ascertain the validity of the match before providing details of these to Local Authority clients. This includes land registry checks, banding and rating list checks, postcode verification checks and more.

NEXUS reports will typically include everything an Authority would need to make a case to the VOA for getting the property added on to the relevant list. For example a case summary, images of the property, extracts of the relevant banding or rating list information, any relevant planning permissions or maps and the sales history of a property.

Identifying deletions, demolitions, and change of use
NEXUS can identify where properties are deleted following demolition and subsequent rebuilds have occurred and where a property has either not been added on to the list again or has been incorrectly deleted. There are also cases where commercial properties are demolished and replaced with domestic properties, or a larger property is split into a series of smaller independent units, it is these kinds of properties which tend to slip through the net and which NEXUS can help identify.

Commission-based solution
The NEXUS solution is ideal for Local Authorities with little resource and minimal budget, as you don’t pay anything unless the NEXUS business support team find a domestic or commercial property which is missing and is subsequently added to either the rating or banding list.

In the case of commercial properties a one-off percentage fee of the change in rateable value is charged and for domestic properties a one-off cost is charged per property.

Case Management Reporting tool
Local Authorities can keep a track of properties found by the NEXUS business support team and subsequently added to either the rating or banding list using an online portal. This can be used to assist with performance management and reporting back on the success of the programme to help validate ongoing investment and for audit purposes.

NEXUS enables Local Authorities to identify unlisted business rates properties and unbanded council tax properties within their area and with regular data refreshes, Councils have a real opportunity to maximise income and revenue on an ongoing basis using NEXUS.

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