A cafe owner claims he is owed more than £2,600 in overpaid business rates.
Hamid Parast, who runs Centre Cafe Lounge in Baldwin Street, alleges Bristol City Council baselessly charged him £1,435, as we reported last November.
But now the 52-year-old believes the true figure owed to him by the council is £2,685.75, having inspected his records on the council website.
He said: “Every penny counts at the moment, because January is the worst time of the year for us. They should have given us this money a long time ago.”
Mr Parast closed his company Off Centre Cafe Lounge in October 2018 and started a new one, Centre Cafe Company, so all accounts would be in his name rather than those of previous business partners.
He claims the council wired him £1,435 in December 2018 and told him it was returning ‘overpaid instalments’ of business rates from the old company.
Mr Parast says he received notices summoning him to Bristol Magistrates’ Court over non-payment of business rates four times in 2019 .
Each time, he claims, the council reassured him there had been an administrative error and he did not need to attend.
But Mr Parast says an enforcement agent entered Centre Cafe Lounge on October 2 last year and made him pay £1,435 to the council.
He said he then received an email from the council saying he had “requested that the credit of £1,435 was refunded” months previously and the bailiff was sent because the money had to be “returned” to the council.
'It makes no sense'
Now Mr Parasthas has claimed the local authority owes him a further £1,250.75, on top of the £1,435.
He has analysed his business rates accounts on the council website, which says he paid £7,900 in rates from April to December 2018 but was only liable for £5,214.25 during that period.
Mr Parast claims he has never received the £2,685.75 overpayment back from the council.
The website says the council paid that amount into the Off Centre Cafe Lounge business rates account between January and April last year, but Mr Parast says that business had already closed by that time.
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He said: “Why have they put it into an old account which is closed? I cannot access it. It makes no sense.
“It has been horrible to deal with this, with summon after summon. I run a small cafe in this hard time. I don’t need unnecessary stress.”
Mr Parast says the council has refused to pay him the £2,685.75 he claims he is owed despite repeatedly calling and emailing.
The council's position in November was the issue was caused by an accounting error from Mr Parast and the account had been settled.
It declined to comment on his latest claims because its complaints team is in the process of putting together a response for the businessman.
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