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

givememymoneyback · 13 April 2008 at 5:54PM

Zebedeee wrote: »

givememymoneyback, your extensions will not make any difference to your banding as it is the value of the house in 1991 which counts.

The chances are that you will get a standard letter telling you that you have been in the property over 6 months so they will not review your band. You will need to gather evidence that these properties actually came into the band B values in 1991 rather than using the calculator as evidence. If you can do this, eg. sales ads from your local paper from 1991, then it's worth putting all your evidence down in a letter and batting it back to the VOA. You need some solid evidence on your side so as not to simply result in the neighbours being put up a band!

Hope that helps!

Zebedeee

Hi Zebedeee

I have e-mailed the local paper to see if I can get copies of the papers, are there any websites you can get info from a lot are just calculators not actual prices, and actual prices only go back to 2000 on up my street.

Thanks

goods_2 · 13 April 2008 at 10:26PM

We live in a one bedroom house. We are banded at C and so is my neighbour, who is also in a one bedroom house.The reason we want to question our banding is that friends who live a few streets away are also banded at C but they live in a 3 bedroomed house.

I checked out the valuation of the property via the calculator and according to this we should be in band A.Our friends are in the correct band.

Do we have a case and what evidence do we need?

Zebedeee · 13 April 2008 at 11:31PM

givememymoneyback wrote: »

Hi Zebedeee

I have e-mailed the local paper to see if I can get copies of the papers, are there any websites you can get info from a lot are just calculators not actual prices, and actual prices only go back to 2000 on up my street.

Thanks

I don't think you will be able to find online house prices before 2000, even the Land Registry don't have this information, so its a tricky business. I found asking prices in the newspaper archives at my local main library. They were stored on microfiche and you just ask the library for the property paper microfiche for 1991 (might well be a supplement or you may have to trawl through the whole newspaper as I did) and they set up the machine for you to use there and then. I'd give them a ring first to let them know you are coming, and to make sure they have them at that branch. It's not difficult and they'll show you how to use it if you haven't used one before.

I'm afraid there is quite a lot of legwork involved in this, it isn't all helpfully accessible online. I made lots of notes on properties simillar to mine and their asking prices in Q1 1991. You can sometimes take copies of the microfiche pages, for which they usually charge you 10p per sheet. Then I drove round the area where I had found suitably comparable properties and covertly took photographs so that I had a nice comprehensive dossier to present with my evidence.

At least after examining the newspaper evidence you should have a good idea of whether or not you can get good evidence to support your case. If not then you know not to waste any further effort.

Nobody said this was going to be easy!:rolleyes:

L122ie · 17 April 2008 at 10:15AM

Can anyone help?

My Mother has recently contacted the Voa officer as she believes she is in the wrong council tax band. She is in band G, the same as the houses in the private road next to her, but she lives on the main road (and a roundabout). The other houses along the main road are in band F. It is difficult to compare as they are all different, but the one next to her was recently on the market for 1.1 million and her is not worth anything like that. The house that is closest to her in style i.e. an old gatehouse Lodge was sold in 2004 for £570,000 and was then put up to band F as the previous owner had done alot of work. Band G is only one band down from a Very expensive private estate for the rich and famous that is in the same town. The houses there are worth 3 million upwards. Is this fare? the voa officer agreed but said that they only have a certain number of bands so anything over £320,00 at the time was band H.

The Voa officer said that my mother was in the correct band for the value of her house, but how can this be when he has not even been out to value her house.

Where can we go next? can we appeal to his decision or are we to just except what his says?

teresacat · 17 April 2008 at 10:48AM

I find it amazing that while I rent a 2 bedroom terraced house in a not particularly desirable part of town, I pay only £30 a month less than my boss who lives in a 6 bedroom/3 reception detached house in a remote area just a few metres away from miles of sandy beaches! In the last 3 years he has extended his house by 2 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms and a conservatory but this doesn't seem to be taken into account on the council tax. Are the 1991 figs that the tax is set by due to remain?

vivatifosi · 17 April 2008 at 11:34AM

Hi teresacat,

The good or bad news is that you can extend your house to your heart's content. Providing you don't move it doesn't get taken into account for Council Tax. Therefore if you look up your boss's house on the VOA website you'll probably find it has a little i in a blue circle next to it. This means that when he moves they will consider rebanding it for the next person. The good news is that if you have space in your house, you can do exactly the same and they won't put your tax up.

Whether or not you or he are in the right band does, unfortunately relate to the price in 1991. His may be too low (unconverted) compared to his neighbours. Correspondingly yours may be too high compared to yours. But you need to compare like for like in the local area.

Whether or not there is a wholesale rebanding is a political hot potato. IMHO there should be one, but as in certain areas houses will routinely go up a whole band then this won't be a vote winner, and we'll probably be left with the mish mash of a system that we have now because no politician has the balls to address the issue.

vivatifosi · 17 April 2008 at 11:38AM

Hi Li22ie,

You need to look at the value of your Mum's house as it was in 1991. The VOA is right. There is a massive band at the top end because everything over a certain price went in it, and your Mum's house is one band below. There has been talk of adding a band at the top end, but this won't lower your Mum's tax, it will just put up that of the neighbours (if they ever get round to introducing it).

The only thing you can do is work out the 1991 price of your Mum's house and reappeal to the VOA in the light of any evidence you dig up. If you look back through this thread there is plenty of info on how to do this. Good luck!

L122ie · 17 April 2008 at 1:35PM

vivatifosi wrote: »

Hi Li22ie,

You need to look at the value of your Mum's house as it was in 1991. The VOA is right. There is a massive band at the top end because everything over a certain price went in it, and your Mum's house is one band below. There has been talk of adding a band at the top end, but this won't lower your Mum's tax, it will just put up that of the neighbours (if they ever get round to introducing it).

The only thing you can do is work out the 1991 price of your Mum's house and reappeal to the VOA in the light of any evidence you dig up. If you look back through this thread there is plenty of info on how to do this. Good luck!

Many thanks for your reply.

The problem we have is that we have no idea of the value of my mum's house as she has lived there for problably 50 years and has done several extentions. There are no properties the same as hers so it is difficult to say what it was valued in 1991.

vivatifosi · 17 April 2008 at 2:46PM

Hi Li22ie,

Then your best best would be to speak to a local agent who has been there for some years and ask their opinion as to what the 1991 value was. You can also use the Freedom of Information Act to request info as to how your parent's house was banded.

Unfortunately your Mum's isn't an easy case, because of the issue regarding the individual nature of the property. You should however also make sure that no extensions built post April 1991 were included in the valuation.

L122ie · 17 April 2008 at 8:07PM

vivatifosi wrote: »

Hi Li22ie,

Then your best best would be to speak to a local agent who has been there for some years and ask their opinion as to what the 1991 value was. You can also use the Freedom of Information Act to request info as to how your parent's house was banded.

Unfortunately your Mum's isn't an easy case, because of the issue regarding the individual nature of the property. You should however also make sure that no extensions built post April 1991 were included in the valuation.

Many thanks again for taking the trouble to reply.

We have decided to write another letter to the VOA with all the evidence I have discovered regarding the sales and valuations of the nearby houses that have been sold in the last 8 years and using the nationwide house price calculator we have been able to show their prices in 1991. The whole band rating shows no sense at all, so I will be using 'The Freedom of Information Act to gain information as to how they valued the house in the first place.

Thank you again,

I will let you know if we have any joy.

L122ie

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

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