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

Maisie

caris wrote: »

Hi

Finally received our letter from VOA today saying they will not change our banding, after reading all of the letter and their reasons for not changing our band, I noticed that they have put our property has being a "normal" construction (their wording), but it is not it is of a "woolaway" construction the same as all the houses below ours. I telephoned the lady and pointed out that our home was a "woolaway" construction and she started to argue with me over the phone, I said that we had been told on a few occassions that it was a "woolaway" construction, and had even been told by a surveyor when we tried to buy or home under the "right to buy" that it was not mortgageable due to the construction, her response was that she will have to come out and inspect the property herself. She was very obnoxious on the telephone and was adamant that her view on our properties build was correct, she is now calling out to us next Monday to see for herself, in a way I am dreeding her coming after her attitude on the phone, but it will be lovely to see her face when she realises that she has made a mistake, and that she will have to change our banding to be the same has all the other "woolaway" houses in our road. So heres hoping that my next posting on this matter will be to report a success.

caris

Caris. I wish you luck with this. Don't let them grind you down. Hope you'll soon be posting that she was proved wrong.

Good luck. Maisie

caris

Thank you Maisie, I have spoken to our HA and they are sending me out a confirmation letter stating what our house is built with, so someone is in for a shock when they come visiting.

caris

guppy

caris wrote: »

Thank you Maisie, I have spoken to our HA and they are sending me out a confirmation letter stating what our house is built with, so someone is in for a shock when they come visiting.caris

Well done, caris.

If the type of construction is officially designated as defective and the house is not repairable/mortgageable then the house will probably only be worth the value of the land its on, less the cost of clearing the site.

Good luck.

vivatifosi

caris wrote: »

Thank you Maisie, I have spoken to our HA and they are sending me out a confirmation letter stating what our house is built with, so someone is in for a shock when they come visiting.

caris

Hi Caris,

Do you live in the West Country? There were many Woolaway houses built there and the councils have lists of them and the problems that require remedying which you may like to read through in case there's any tips and points that you can use. Pre-cast concrete houses of this type may be classed as "defective dwellings" if they have unrectified problems.

Section five of Practice Note four of the Valuation Office Agency Council Tax Manual for England states:


5. Structural Defects

Where a dwelling suffers from an inherent structural defect this will form part of the character of the property and is not something which is deemed to be remedied by the assumption of a "state of reasonable repair" (see CTM:PN1). The state of reasonable repair to be assumed is that appropriate to dwellings which are similar in character (ie dwellings with similar inherent structural defects) as opposed to those in the immediate neighbourhood which do not have those structural defects.

I'm not an expert on building structures, but it sounds to me as though the VOA aren't supposed by their own rules and regs to compare such blighted structures to a normally constructed building and that your Council Tax assessment should be in line with other similarly constructed buildings in your neighbourhood...

Good luck!

rightdave_2

Hi, I'm confused and I think my confusion may have cost me money!

I did all the checking as advised on Martins site, house prices, banding etc

I bought my house in late 1999 with a D banding, I appealed in 2000 and it was reduced to a C!

Last month on trying to reduce it to a B I checked the latest house sale on my road against the price it would have been in 1991 and the banding came up as a B, great I thought...however my road is a mixture of detached and semi-detached and the latest house to be sold was a semi whilst mine is detached.....so I checked again using my next door neighbours house, exactly the same as mine but sold for less money than the semi....this then came up with a D banding.....can you see the confusion?

So does anyone know if I will be reduced to B stay a C or moved, (please no) to a D aaaarrrgggggg

Thanks for reading and it wasn't too much like hard work!!

guppy

Dave, if your band was reduced as a result of a formal appeal, i.e. you signed a form to agree to a reduction, it can't be put up or down, unless the house changes.

sfa1

just to say great thread. my case is quite specific, so any help greatly apperciated. i bought my 2 bed 2 bathroom flat in january of this year for £227,000.this is my first property and i didnt realise you could acutally appeal the tax band, until i had passed the 6 month period.i am currently on an E banding. Having spoken to friends with much larger 3, 4 bedroom houses who have the same banding, i requested a review of my banding.i put a covering letter together with a copy of the valuation carried out ealier this year showing the value, plus various website prints showing what the flat would have been worth in 1991. my research showed a banding of C or at least D was be correct.my flat and the block its part of, was part of a conversion from an office block back in 1999. all the flats of a similar size are on a band E. On the VOA website it says the banding was valid from october 2004. my flat sold for £330,000 in 2005. since then, prices have abviously fallen. i assume the E banding was based on the overinflated prices at the time.really i wanted to know what my chances of success are, based on the fact that the valuation of £227000 as of january 2007 produces bands of C and D on all retrospective house price calculators, but all the similar flats in my building are on an E band.what else could i do to strengthen my case? my flats have underground parking, small gym, swimming pool/sauna, concierge, etc, and so its hard to find something similar which would have been around in 1991 in my area to do the band comparison on, or do these added services not impact the tax bads, given that they come with their own service charge?im waiting the two months theyve stated, but is there anything else i can do? my case is really based on the fact that the current tax band came into effect at the peak of prices at £330,000. given they have fallen now, and ive sent a copy of the independent valuation carried out by my mortgage lender, will they take this into account, especially if it seems noone else has appealed and everyone with similar flats is on an E band??any help please -)

sfa1

sorry, i did try numerous times, but previous post kept coming out in one large chunk!

vivatifosi

Hi sfa1

It is the price at which the property was first sold, rather than with current reductions, that the VOA takes into account. In that respect, they will work from the £330k figure or whatever the relevant equivalent was for your apartment. Sounds like you got a bargain though!

In terms of the swimming pool, sauna, etc, my understanding are that these are "common parts" of the building that you have access to. So although you pay an ongoing service charge for the use of these, they had to be provided in the fabric of the building in the first place. In that respect you are right, it will be hard to find such apartments on the market in 1991. I tried unsuccessfully to search the Council Tax manual for how the VOA values these increasingly complex common parts, so this is something you may want to ask them.

Two things you can do though:

1. Look at other new properties - not only apartments - in the area that sold for the first time the same time as your apartment. Double check that these have a similar banding on the VOA website (you should be able to see what was on the market at the time by viewing back copies of local newspapers at your local library).

2. Make sure any incentives that you have paid as part of your purchase price are excluded. These can include furniture packages, fees payment, etc and may run into several £000s. Though that still may not be enough to change the banding.

Good luck!

losgiganteskid

A really quick question: I am about to start on the task of quizzing my local VOA office regarding the possibility of a downgrade on my council tax banding. I've done all the groundwork and sent off a month ago my letter and all the documentary evidence I could muster. I have not received an acknowledgement from them. Fortuitously, I sent it Recorded Delivery and I see from the Royal Mail website they have signed for it. So my question I suppose is - is it normal to wait this long for an initial responce, even a postcard at least saying they have received my letter would be nice. Or do they hope you will "just go away"