Council Tax Cost Cutting: reduce your band and grab any discounts Discussion Area

On seeing Martin's post about this subject, we decided to investigate our council tax band with neighbouring properties.

To our surprise we found that the bungalows on either side of ours where different, one being on the same band as us and one being a band lower.

Both of these properties have more land than us, with the one on the same band being a large corner plot, has an extension and a conservatory. The one on the lower band has a slightly smaller garden area to the rear but also has an extra triangle shape garden to the side of the bungalow, making it larger in total than ours. They don't have an extension but do have a large conservatory to the side. We only have a small utility style conservatory as that is all that would fit.

We live in a cul-de-sac but the other bungalows down the road from us are also in the lower tax band.

I wrote to the Valuation office to query this and received a reply stating that the other properties were incorrectly banded and they will be rebanded in the near future. Bearing in mind that I live in N.Wales and we have in the last couple of years gone through a National rebanding programme, unlike England, why weren't they rebanded then?

We were given the option of withdrawing our application or for it to go for a hearing. I e-mailed to stating that if the informtion they had given me was correct I wished to withdraw my appeal but wished to reserve my right to reapply if this did not happen.

The hearing was set for 15 September 2006, then on 20 September 2006 I received the following Notice of Adjournment stating:

"The tribunal has adjourned the hearing of this appeal etc. Please contact this office if you are not sure why it has been adjourned. If the appeal is not settled, I will write to you again when I have arranged a new hearing date. Clerk of the Tribunal.

2nd page. Appeal No. 0000000

"Following the introduction of the appeal proposal contending for Band D on the basis of comparables, the Clerk also read out an email from the appellant (dated 22 Aug 2006). Ms Davies, Listing Officer responded by seeking dismissal of the appeal stating a conditional withdrawal had been received. However, she accepted the comparables cited do need reviewing".

The Tribunal felt an adjournment was appropriate to give the Listing Officer an opportunity to review the comparables and respod to the appellant.

DECISION: APPEAL ADJOURNED.

Does anyone know what this means, as no further date was set and I wonder what happens next and when???

Any help on this would appreciated.

Many thanks.

Bloaty

Oddly, following the date set for the hearing (despite my withdrawal) I had a letter to say that my app. had been withdrawn but the court stated something about they felt I should be advised of the outcome of any review of local properties and my case be reheard in December

pigpen wrote:

How does the discount work if you are a carer?

I am the registered carer for my son.. he receives DLA and I receive carers allowance. He is almost 11.

I read you can claim a discount in some circumstances if you are a carer.. or is this only for those such as foster carers not carers of DLA recipients? It isn't very clear.

I haven't heard anything about this before, not that that would surprise me.

Can anyone shed any light?

Thanks in advance!

In addition to the other reply I saw you got, I understand that if you are caring for a child in recipt of higher rate care component and don't get the one adult reduction, you can apply for a discount. A single adult household can already get a discount on that basis and can't get the carers discount as well.

N

Do you think it's possible for my parents to get a rebate, I live with them due to disability and my mother is my carer. My father works though, would that make a difference?
TIA

I wrote a reply on this discussion a few wks ago when I was miffed cos I'd been told years ago that nothing could be done when I believed my band was too high. Well thanks to this thread I had another go& got back 8 years worth of overpayments. Weh hey!

I have exactly the same problem - I wrote :-
The fact that we are one half of a pair of semi-detached houses would suggest to me that we should be similarly banded. This would suggest to me that the Listing Officer is not maintaining his statutory duty to ‘maintain the quality of the list’.
Perhaps you could explain to me how we can have the ‘cheapest’ property in the road but be two bands ahead of our neighbours.
Looking forward to your response,
Yours sincerely

I have had the response that all properties will be similarly banded - ie my neighbours will go up!
This hasn't happened yet!