Council tax - house being revalued

Northants_Simon

I received a letter telling me my house is going to be revalued for Council tax. It's currently a band D and they are looking at changing it to a band E.

I brought the house late last year and nothing was mentioned about any dispute over the council tax valuation.

I spoke to the person doing the valuation and explained I have the original land registry documents from when the house was built in 1997. This shows the new price of the house was £79,000. Council tax works on the 1991 valuation, which I think would be less. Band E starts at £88001, some £9k more than the house was sold for when new.

They say they don't take that into consideration and it's done one their estimate of the value in 1991 rather than actual sold prices.

Some of my neighbours are band E, but they have double garages and I don't.

I'm told someone on the estate has disputed their house being a band E, so they are going to look at changing everyone else from D to E rather than reducing them to a D.

Have any of you experienced this?

lincroft1710

As I'm ex VOA, I did come across this. Increasing bands under such circumstances is not often done and usually there will be very good evidence to support the increase.

House prices dropped from around late 1989 and continued to fall until about 1995. Some areas and house types had risen to 1991 price levels by 1997, others took longer, so it is possible that where you live 91 prices were higher than 97.

If the band is increased you do have the right of appeal.