Council tax reband rejected. Why and where now?

marky2027

Last year we challenged the banding of our property (D at present) trying to get it reduced to a C but we failed. We feel ready again to take up the challenge. Let me try and be as brief as possible. Our estate was built in 1999 and is a 3 bed detached of which there are only 5 on the estate. The rest are all 4 bed detached some with double garages and all the houses on the entire estate are in band D. There was another estate built in the same year which is in the same town about 2 miles away. There are sveral properties exactly the same as ours and all of those are in band C. When we gave all of this evidence to the VOA they still rejected it and even hinted that the other proerties may be re-banded up into a D. Apparantly someone else on OUR estate had already challenged their banding a few years back and took it all the way to court where it was ruled that they should remain in a D. Because of this the VOA told us there was nothing more we could do.We have just checked the other similar properties' bandings andthey are all still in C.
Why could this be possible and where do we go from here? Any advice would be great.

lincroft1710

A decision by a Valuation Tribunal (court) is often seen by VOA as a precedent. In this case the matter has been determined by an independent body, beyond which there is no further appeal, unless on a point of law. Therefore when you as the taxpayer of the same type of house, on the same estate enquire about the band, other than an actual April 1991 sale price, the VOA has the best evidence in the form of a VT decision. Which is what I would have said to taxpayer when I worked at VOA.

You've given them the evidence which you believe proves your point and for whatever reason they have rejected it, so it is pointless just reiterating the same. You could write to the Group Customer Service Manager, who is a person who handles complaints and whose name/address is on VOA website www.voa.gov.uk . You can ask why the houses you quoted are still Band C, but even if GCSM cannot answer this, I'll bet they'll still refer to VT decision on other house proving your band's correct.

marky2027

Thanks a lot for the information. I think the only thing I can do is go and knock on the other houses on our estate and find out who challenged their banding. Then I can find out exactly what happened. I may have misunderstood what VOA actually said. If it was definitely decided by a tribunal then I think there is no point trying again.