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

Zebedeee

Marc, It would seem to me that you have a very good case, well worth pursuing. Have you been able to find actual selling prices, or at least asking prices, for houses like yours from round about the time of the valuation? (eg. from archives of local property pages) These seem to carry more weight with the VOA than price calculations.

Like you, I have found that the VOA would rather fob you off with a standard-type reply rather than actually addressing the blindingly obvious evidence you have submitted!

Send them another letter, disputing their reasoning and submitting any other evidence you can lay your hands on. It may be referred to a Listing Officer who may have a different opinion, or you may get a Tribunal. Either way, I'd keep at it. It has to be worth it!

Hope that helps!

Zebedee

guppy

Marc, I agree with Zebedee. You might also try phoning the person that came round. She probably dealt with your case. It is very easy for the Valuation Office to send out a standard letter and sidestep your query.

Its less easy if you are on the phone asking awkward questions. Good luck!

SteveUK_3

Lengy wrote: »

My wife and I have applied for a council tax reduction from band B to band A, but have had our appeal turned down. When we applied for ths reduction, we did not send off the purchase price, which was £31000 when we bought it in 2000.
Can we re-submit and include the purchase price for proof that the house should fall into band A?

You can ask for a second review HOWEVER the valuation office have records of all sales so this purchase price has probably already been taken into account. As im sure you are aware its 1991 sales that are used. The valuation office also have to assume that a house is in good state of repair when purchased was this the reason your sale price was low ?

SteveUK_3

aimo wrote: »

i checked my house value in 1991 and it was about £100 over the limit for band b, so i'm currently band c. My house is detached and the other detached houses in my street are all band c, but the semi's are band b. would it be worth my while to try to cut it down to band b (how likely am i to be successful?), and is there any chance that it will go up? Thanks!

CAN ANYONE PLEASE ADVISE? THANKS!

House calculators can be WAY out of the actual sales evidence because as most of them warn they are there to show general trends and NOT ACTUAL HOUSE VALUES. Its worth applying if you feel yours is really wrong however dont base your query just on the fact that the calculator says its wrong, yes the others can go up if they are wrong and yours is right

SteveUK_3

Stephypoo wrote: »

we are also having problems with challenging our banding, our close consists of 30 houses, our type is selling at 229,950 the house opposite is twice the sixe and sold for 295,000 in 2005 so how can houses with at least £70k difference be in the same band E , our last house in cambridge was exactly the same size as this one and it was a band D. I think when they assessed these houses when they were built in 200o just lumped them all as band E . Our council listing officer says we have no right of appeal which I think is unjust. I thought we were entitled to go to an independent tribunal or to be able to challenge the council tax charter. To me it seems so obviously incorrect but they don't want to pay out do they?

Band E ranges from £88,001 and £120,000 in 1991 which is a gap of £32,000 - as house prices have increased so that gap has widened when estimated on todays prices so it is possible. Was the new properties part of an estate ? if so then the easiest thing to do is check to see if the builder built the same type elsewhere and check those bandings

SteveUK_3

fliodhasfaerie wrote: »

Hello,

I hope this is the right thread to be on?

My parents bought their house from the council in 1993. They have always been placed in Band C.
Recently,due to the publicity Council Banding has received,they are pretty sure they should have been placed in Band B.

The house when they bought it had the council value of £51,000 and for being tenants they were discounted £23,500 making the total they actually bought it for £27,500.

From the Council Banding literature that should have placed them in Band B.

They have queried this with the council and have received the reply that Band C is the correct band - all the houses in the street,whether they be detached,semi-detached,any number of bedrooms etc are Band C and they calculated the Banding on future property values,no rights to appeal etc.

However there is no getting away from the fact that it was bought at £51,000 !!1993} from the council????

Where do they go from here? Is there a next step? Is it even worth it?

I'm not having much luck finding any info on my thread and any and all advice would be very welcome please.

Thank you :0)

the easiest answer to this is that £51,000 is only £1,000 below Band C and in 1993 the prices of most properties nationwide were unfortunately quite a bit lower than in 1991.

SteveUK_3

Boonbetty wrote: »

Thank you, I will definitely do that - the main bugbear is that eot is Band D and mid terrace is Band C - for identical size houses. We are therefore paying £20 more per month just for the benefit of an end wall and a three foot wide path down the side.

When thinking about this ask yourself would you pay more ofr an end terraced than you would a mid-terraced ? most people would say yes to this. Then it becomes a case of ok how much more ? and where do i think the properties fall in the banding range ?

If you still think the property is wrong then chase it up

SteveUK_3

Maisie wrote: »

Voa probably won't take projectanalyser either! They have their own set of sales figures/prices and stick to them but won't let the applicant know of them.

It's all very frustrating and I thought the FOI would allow this info to be seen by the public. Seems not.

You could try them BoonBetty. Might be lucky!

Seems to be projectanalyser/nationwide calculator/archived library sales/ Land registry /talk to neighbours/valuation reports for close to 1991/ and chartered surveyors as mentioned on this page for information. All that combined with any other evidence might make voa listen?????

The Council Tax Banding system uses only actual sales however im sure they will accept definitive valuations from 1991 as good evidence. Unfortunately property calculators have been shown to be way out - for instance if a property was sold in 1995 and again in 2005, its very rare that the sales calculate anywhere near each other when scaled back to 1991, try it yourself for proof

SteveUK_3

marc_ely wrote: »

Hi

I've been trying to reduce my council tax band and so far it's now worked. I thought I'd see if people think that I have reached the end of the road with this one. Apologies for the rather long post.

I moved into my house about 4 years ago. All the houses in the street are individual, or in pairs, we are in East Cambridgeshire.
The house is band-F which I always thought rather high, so when I discovered that you can get it re-valued I thought I'd look into it.

I found the historical price for the house when council tax was introduced was more like £110k, in band-E. I backtracked from the price I paid 4 years ago, and current valuations now (we're just going on the market again). Both gave me £110k more or less.
So then I checked the street. I was astonished to find BIGGER houses than mine just a few doors away in band-E. Not just one or two either, an entire close round the corner are all band-E.

So I presented all the info to the VOA, including annotated satellite images of the houses etc About 7 pages of info in all.

The reply came back looking like it had been typed by a robot, telling me that band-F was very fair and that the other houses were according to their "records" smaller than mine.

So I called them to discuss this, and they sent out an accessor. She measured my house and I then showed her the others. She agreed that it was "very fishy" indeed that they were banded lower, whilst being obviously larger. She even took a photo of one of the other houses.

So two weeks later I receive another letter telling me that my house is the size they thought it was, and again, her records show that the other houses were according to their "records" smaller than mine. They tried to skirt the issue by trying to tell me that the houses must have been extended. This is plainly rubbish since two of the large band-E's are identical properties.
She also maintains that the property was in band-F in terms of price, quoting that a "smaller property" in the street sold for £121k around the time council tax was introduced.

Their "records" are obviously wrong on some of these properties. There is no shadow of doubt that there are larger houses in lower bands just a couple of doors away.

But if I've gone this far does anyone think it's worth going further?
The next step would be to surreptitiously measure the other houses and submit this new evidence. But they appear to have made their decision and as far as I can see there is no further appeal route. Is this correct?

Regards
Marc

Got to admit if this is correct then it sounds fishy, do you speak to these neighbours ? could you ask them if its possible to run a tape round the outside of their houses to get the overall size and check the accomodation ? take the letter from the VO with you if it helps.

Dribble_2

SteveUK wrote: »

Got to admit if this is correct then it sounds fishy, do you speak to these neighbours ? could you ask them if its possible to run a tape round the outside of their houses to get the overall size and check the accomodation ? take the letter from the VO with you if it helps.

---

It's a mistake to get bogged down with 'measurements'. It's actual 'sales' that count. A lot of waffle is coming out of VOA offices about square metres of living space when it's 'Values' in the area that matters. i.e:

(The Listing Officer is obliged to have strict reference to the relevant legislation. Regulation 6(1) and (2) of the Council Tax (Situation and Valuation of Dwellings) Regulations 1992, as amended by Regulation 4 of the Council Tax (Situation and Valuation of Dwellings) (Amendment) Regulations 1994, provide that the value of a dwelling shall be taken to be the amount which the dwelling would, subject to certain assumptions, reasonably have been expected to realise if sold in the open market by a willing vendor on 1 April 1991.)

You need similar properties with proof of a sales, but general values at postcode level will be good evidence at a tribunal if you are obviously well within a band range.