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

Maisie

moetraveller wrote:

I just want to say thank you for this article. Through the links I found out that the house I bought a year ago was banded incorrectly - too high! I notified my taxation office & with no problems & a great deal of courtesy, they have refunded the excess tax I paid & rebanded the house - to a lower band for next year. They also refunded the previous owners - without any request being made by them!

Hi moetraveller.

That's great news. Glad my original post helped you get this rebate and rebanding.

Good news for the previous owners too. Haven't heard of refunding previous owners before without asking.
You must be very popular with them now.

Maisie OP

hornbeam_2

Sent email to VOA 4 months ago, and received a letter stating that my band is correct, despite all houses surrounding me being a band lower.

Then had a letter 3 weeks ago, saying they made a mistake and I was right, and I should have been paying the lower band.

just received a cheque for 1,174 squiddly diddlies,

Thanks MSE.

The only down side was the missus went out and spent it a day later.

Annie021063

Can you claim overpayments for a house you no longer own???

Maisie

hornbeam wrote:

Sent email to VOA 4 months ago, and received a letter stating that my band is correct, despite all houses surrounding me being a band lower.

Then had a letter 3 weeks ago, saying they made a mistake and I was right, and I should have been paying the lower band.

just received a cheque for 1,174 squiddly diddlies,

Thanks MSE.

The only down side was the missus went out and spent it a day later.

Hornbeam that's great news even if the missus did spend it!

Worth persevering to get your right banding.

Pass the word on check council tax banding https://www.voa.gov.uk

maisie. OP

Maisie

Annie021063 wrote:

Can you claim overpayments for a house you no longer own???

Hi Annie. See moetraveller's post No 110. The previous owners got a refund. If I were you I'd contact the voa and ask about previous houses you owned. Nothing to lose.

Good luck.

Maisie OP

jamesiebabie

Annie021063 wrote:

Can you claim overpayments for a house you no longer own???

Annie,

I have a very strong feeling that you may be unsuccessful here, but they can only say no. It would be interesting to find out why they lowered the band and if they lowered any other the same as your old house prior to your moving. If this is the case then I would suspect that the VOA were not doing their duty and you maybe able to make a claim as they should have done the consequentials.

J

jamesiebabie

SavingTide wrote:

I checked my banding and noted I am on a higher band than identical house next door (not precisely identical, but if anything theirs is larger then mine. )
Before proceeding to apply for a rate reduction, can the result of this be they judge next door is paying too little rather than I am paying too much. I have excellent friendship with them and do not want to fall out (Oh thanks neighbour for getting my tax increased... can this happen?
thanks in advance

Savingtide,

I would urge you to do your homework, but the VOA are highly unlikely to raise your band on the back of any appeal. This is such a political hot potato at the momnet the VOA are scared to do anything but give reductions.

If you think you are definately borderline or below, then I urge you to appeal. If you think it could go up, then I would suggest you are in the right band and that you sit tight. The last thing you want to do is raise their attention as there is a Revaluation around the corner, when it could well go up.

jamesiebabie

pbfhpunk wrote:

Hi, after reading this thread I went on the site and emailed my application for change. I didn't hear anything but phoned them last week and they said they'd sent me 2 letters 4 weeks ago, the next day two letters arrived!! One said that my application had been denied and included a letter stating why, the second letter said I could appeal and they'd look into it and enclosed a form.

I also want to send a letter with my reasons for why the band should be changed. Does anyone have any templates or letters that they've sent that would show me how to lay it out and what information to include. Basically there's 46 houese in my road all terrace, mine is an end terrace. of the 46 20 are band A and the other 26 are B, including mine, 6 houses had the banding changed from B to A so I know there's a prescedent the date of the change is 1/4/93 for all of them, I'm guessing that's a generic date. My next door neighbour is one of the ones that has had their band changed but last summer added an extra floor and 2 further bedrooms to their house! I've also looked at other streets in the same area and out of around 100 only about 10 are band B. As the bands were decided on how much the house was worth when they were done, does anyone know how I would find out the price of my house then? I bought my house in 1996 for £34,000 and they're now selling for around £112k-£125k.

Any help would be gratefully appreciated!!

Helen

Helen,

This is relatively straight forward. You've already convinced me!! OK.

Write the letter to the Group Customer Service Manager stating.

Dear Sir/Madame,

Ref. The Council Tax Charter

I refer to the above and your ability to review the banding even if you are unable to make a valid appeal. I apprecaiate that my appeal would be made invalid due to the time restraints, however, I do believe that my current banding is too high.

My justification for this is that numbers x, xx, xxx are all in band A and that they were reduced on appeal. I believe that my property is very similar to those highlighted and therefore should be reduced in line. To reinforce the matter my sale for my property that I bought in 1996 was for £36,000. The current maximum for council tax banding for a Band A was £40,000 based on 1991 values, thus I beleive my propert would have been worth even less.

Please take al the above into consideration and I look forward to a speedy reply and outcome.

Yours Faithfully,

XXXX


I hope that works. Several of my friends have used this one or very similar.

J

guppy

pbfhpunk wrote:

Basically there's 46 houese in my road all terrace, mine is an end terrace. of the 46 20 are band A and the other 26 are B, including mine, 6 houses had the banding changed from B to A so I know there's a prescedent...

This would suggest to me that yours should be A.

pbfhpunk wrote:

I bought my house in 1996 for £34,000 and they're now selling for around £112k-£125k.

The 1996 price suggests your's is borderline Band B. I would mention this price to them. Generally speaking the housing market didn't come back up to 1991 values until around 1996. Try the Nationwide index at https://www.nationwide.com/hpi/

Hope this helps.

comeonthetic

Hi all,

Checked the banding of the flats around me and they range from band A to band C. This seems ok as there are 1 bedroom, 2 bedroom and 3 bedroom flats.

My flat and the flat next door are both 3 bedroom and band C, however they bought there's in Sept 03 for £63k and we got ours for £48.5k at the same time. Although they are both 3 bedroom, the flat next door is a far better layout with all rooms on same level and more spacious rooms. Ours has 2 bedrooms upstairs and a "boxroom" off the living room. Furthermore our toilet is tiny while the one next door is at least double the size. As a result I firmly believe the flat next door would always be valued a good bit higher than ours.

In addition to the above, the flat directly below me was bought for £45k just under 6 months after we moved in and was a single level flat at the time with band B council tax. They have since renovated the basement below them to make a huge kitchen and a further bedroom, with the other bedroom being extended to include the space were the kitchen used to be (i think).

Does anybody think I would be able to challenge my banding? I believe there is no chance my band would go up to a D and therefore the worst case scenario is the flat below may be changed from B to C.

Pointless or worth a shout??

Thanks

Tic

PS: effective dates of bandings was April 1993.