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

orangepippin

MSE_Archna wrote: »

This thread is here to discuss the content of the article on Council Tax Cashback: reduce your band and save £1000s.

However if you have already followed the system, please use report them in the Council tax rebanding successes discussion.

Note from Martin: Thank you to all the contributers to the initial thread, which provided the genisis for the article. Much appreciated.

help!!! have been in touch with listing officer twice, he claims to have looked at our case thouroughly and says he is satisfied we are in correct band, there seems to be a couple of discrepancies on our estate including one house identical to ours in lower band, he claims they are the incorrect band and not us!!! (he would wouldnt he) however we are all pretty sure that none of these houses placed in the higher band were worth £88.000 in 1991,thus placing them in e band, we(the neighbours and ourselves) are baseing our evidence on the prices paid in 1993 and prices since then, he does not say what he is baseing his evidence on and says we have no right of appeal ???? surely this is not right, and if we do appeal it is only to him???? incidently he says that our figures dont stack up because there was a major slump between 1991 and 1993?? so even though my house was only worth 82,000 on the open market in 1993 it was still worth above 88.000 in 1991??? i am very confused ?? ANY ADVISE WOULD BE HELPFUL

vivatifosi

orangepippin,

The market did fall between 1991 and 1993. My house was built in 1994 and like yours was priced in the low eighties. I did manage to get my banding reset, but only by going to tribunal. You aren't going to win this one easily, and need to do some additional research. Please bear in mind that such research may also confirm the VOA's conclusion and you won't know this until you've done it.

Although the market fell, it didn't fall evenly. Using asking price data for 1991 and 1994, in my town I was able to show that although prices fell by 6% for three bedroom houses, it fell by up to 30% on flats and one bedroom starter homes. And that's just the town I live in. Using aggregate data for the country or region as a whole will only give you average figures which fail to highlight such anomalies. I was lucky, I live in a new town so it was easy to pick out several 'standard' house and flat types and show how prices for these changed. I should point out that I didn't have this evidence for my tribunal but have been helping my neighbours compile their evidence for multiple appeals.

That exercise shows what happened to the house price economy where I live. But it doesn't show the story for new builds which behaved differently. In the time from 1991 to 1993 housebuilders managed to reduce prices by less, by increasing the incentives on offer. Sometimes the VOA failed to exclude these from the prices as they didn't receive this information from the developers. So, look back through your local newspapers (you'll be doing this already for the other exercise) and see if you can find the original marketing adverts for your estate. You may find that incentives were offered such as carpets, curtains, white goods, paying service costs (eg the cost of moving, legal fees etc). These should be stripped out of the cost. Also, if you have a garage in a block, this should not be included for council tax purposes (garages within the boundary are), so try to establish the price for a garage if appropriate. Potentially this could knock several £k off the price paid.

Also see if similar new homes were built in early 1991 and what the price was for those, this will help you establish a baseline.

Whether or not you want to do all this - and be warned - for my home this took 20 hours of research and I'm a full time researcher by trade and knew how to get the info, may depend on: whether you have a right to go to tribunal - this makes things much easier. Looking at your note which says that you have no right to appeal, it would appear that this is not the case. The second factor is your own attitude to work and payback. There are many people on this board who tread the path and appeal on the grounds that the list is inaccurate, but often this is not easy and you need to be in for the long haul.

That said, I wouldn't have won my appeal without the help of everyone on this board - especially Maisie and Guppy, and if you do decide to go ahead and appeal further then you couldn't be in a better, friendlier place to move forward.

Jummy

Situation:
10 houses all the same size,3 are Band B the rest are band C.
Today i received a letter saying that the 3 that are band B are incorrectly banded and that there is nothing that can be done about it.
Can i take this further or is that it?
Thanks!

brightonbuoy

grace21 wrote: »

:rolleyes: Hi brightonbouy,

I assume you have read my previous threads...

yes I have been through the 2 levels of complaining with no joy I came across the complaints proceedure to the Local Government Ombudsman on our council's webpage but you need to get through the 2 levels before they will investigate it.

My MP is David Lepper, I went to his local surgery to see him. He says he will take to London if I'm not successful, as our council appears to be out of step with nearly every other council!!!

I'm holding off going to the small claims court, I want to explore every avenue before that.

Good Luck,

Keep in touch,

Grace

Grace21. Don't bother going to the Local Govt Ombudsman..you will waste your time. I have read on this site that they are only interested in faults in procedure. Someone has taken Brighton Council to the Ombudsman and his view was that they had acted properly , in that they had taken legal advice and acted on it.

The best bet seems to be pursuing the VOA, after all it was their mistake that led to our claims. I am doing that first, the ngoing to the small claims court.

topbargainhunter

topbargainhunter wrote: »

Has anyone else attended one of these, and if so, do you have any tips or suggestions for me? I'm quite nervous about it, and feel like I'm going to be on trial. I don't want to mess it up through nerves.

Thanks very much.

I had my tribunal the other day which was to appeal against my "invalid" proposal to get my band reduced. Basically these are a complete waste of time (and council tax payers money) all the people there were in the same boat, we chatted amongst ourselves before it all started. All they say is you didn't put in an appeal within 6 months of moving in and won't listen to any of your reasons why you think your band is wrong. I have to wait 3 weeks for the outcome, but I know what it will be already. I said that they have a duty to maintain an accurate list but the VO is adamant it's correct.

Apparently Barnet VOA do not give a damn whether their valuations are wrong, they say no to everyone who didn't appeal in time, and don't pay a bit of notice to all the evidence you send them.

I'd be interested to know of any other areas that take the same stance.

There seems to be nowhere to turn when that one valuation officer disagrees with you. Does anyone know what the next step is? I've heard somewhere that I could get the info on other successful rebandings back in 1993, my neighbour appealed in 1993 and got reduced from a C to a B and his property is identical in every way. Is this true and if so where do I get it from?

Thanks for any help anyone can give!

Maisie

Topbargainhunter.
Sorry things didn't go too well at the tribunal.
If you look at https://www.valuation-tribunals.gov.uk you can see other cases there.

See vivatisofi's post #1633 on this page also.

Good luck. Maisie

stuart1_2

Hi all,

Challenged my counil tax banding a few months ago. Received the response that I was out of time but they would check it out anyway. Called a few times to check the progress and was informed that they still think they are right but it will go to a tribunal in September. For a start I dont know what to expect or if I will have to attend? Any advice from those who have already been through this?

Stewart.

Maisie

stuart1 wrote: »

Hi all,

Challenged my counil tax banding a few months ago. Received the response that I was out of time but they would check it out anyway. Called a few times to check the progress and was informed that they still think they are right but it will go to a tribunal in September. For a start I dont know what to expect or if I will have to attend? Any advice from those who have already been through this?

Stewart.

Stewart If you look back at the previous page #41 there are excellent and informative posts from vivatisofi and Zebedee who have been to tribunal and explained what goes on and what to be prepared for.

Post #1617 is one. Other posters have contributed too.

There's a whole load of information further back on the thread covering most aspects of appeals/reviews. Most from poster's experience!

Good luck. Maisie

Daisy_Bell

topbargainhunter wrote: »

".....Apparently Barnet VOA do not give a damn whether their valuations are wrong, they say no to everyone who didn't appeal in time, and don't pay a bit of notice to all the evidence you send them. I'd be interested to know of any other areas that take the same stance...."

Yes. Coventry takes exactly the same stance! They refused to give me details of their 'Evidence' even with no personal details, and when I sent them further evidence, they promised me a further review back in May. However, since the farce of the 'Invalidity' Tribunal, I've heard nothing from them since! What's the bet I won't now. Why should they bother? They hold all the cards! :mad:

grace21

brightonbuoy wrote: »

Grace21. Don't bother going to the Local Govt Ombudsman..you will waste your time. I have read on this site that they are only interested in faults in procedure. Someone has taken Brighton Council to the Ombudsman and his view was that they had acted properly , in that they had taken legal advice and acted on it.

The best bet seems to be pursuing the VOA, after all it was their mistake that led to our claims. I am doing that first, the ngoing to the small claims court.

Hi Brightonbuoy,

That explains the smug letter I recieved from the council today,stating that they had been investigated by the LGO and the outcome was no maladministration by the council.:mad:

The LGO has advised that I can pursue a complaint to the VOA details on their website: https://www.voa.gov.uk
OR
Complain to the Parliamentry and Health Ombudsman via your MP about the VOA.For more information look up their website:www.ombudsman.org.uk.
OR
Consider taking proceedings in County Court against both the Council and the VOA.

I've noticed that in a recent thread someone esle was finding the same problem and has just succeeded in getting them to acknowledge their mistake.

Has any of the more experienced members of this forum got any suggestions what I should do next??

Grace