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

simonauty

can anyone help? we are in council tax band 'F' ALL the other houses on our street are either B'C'D OR E according to all the checks we should be in 'E', because we have lived here for 5 years the listing officer has told us we cannot claim or appeal, we have even sent solicitors letters, but they are adamant they will not look at our case further, any ideas on how to force them to re assess us??

thanks in advance,.........simon

wrlfc

I live in a small street(6 houses).
5 of the houses are in band B ,but 1 house is in band A.
We all have the same postcode and each house is identical.
Does anyone think it would be worthwhile to try and get a reduction
and what my chances of sucess would be.
Regards

Zebedeee

barrie81 wrote: »

I MOVED HOUSE OVER ONE YEAR A GO, CAN I CLAIM A COUNCIL REBANDING TAX BACK ON MY OLD HOUSE

Once you move house you lose your rights to ask for a rebanding. However, if the new owners appeal and are successful you may get a refund for the time you were in the house.

Zebedeee

Zebedeee

shazspice wrote: »

Just been looking at the VOA website and comparing my tax band with my neighbours, and i noticed that one of my neighbours house isn't listed on there. Its a newish house about 5 years old. Any reason why its not listed?

I can't think of a good reason, shazspice. Perhaps one of the others on here can. The only thing I can think of is perhaps it is listed in a different road (I'm thinking if it is a new property squeezed into an established street, maybe has an alternative entrance?), or with a different postcode? Or maybe the Council/VOA haven't noticed they are there yet!

Sorry I haven't got any better ideas.

Zebedeee

Zebedeee

simonauty wrote: »

can anyone help? we are in council tax band 'F' ALL the other houses on our street are either B'C'D OR E according to all the checks we should be in 'E', because we have lived here for 5 years the listing officer has told us we cannot claim or appeal, we have even sent solicitors letters, but they are adamant they will not look at our case further, any ideas on how to force them to re assess us??

thanks in advance,.........simon

When you say, 'according to all the checks we should be in E', what do you mean exactly? If you mean houseprice calculators then they are not sufficient evidence alone. Is your house identical to the other properties, or is it larger or of a higher value in any way? It would be a good idea to ask the VOA to explain why they say you are in the right band. Put the ball back in their court. If your house is the same/very simillar to the other lower banded properties then you could mention to the VOA that it is their duty to maintain the 'tone of the list', ie. identical properties should be in the same band.

Also, you need to see what price houses like yours sold for in 1991. You can do this by looking at property newspaper archives in your local library.

See how you get on with that, and come back to us if you need any more help.

Zebedeee

Zebedeee

wrlfc wrote: »

I live in a small street(6 houses).
5 of the houses are in band B ,but 1 house is in band A.
We all have the same postcode and each house is identical.
Does anyone think it would be worthwhile to try and get a reduction
and what my chances of sucess would be.
Regards

Be very careful with this one, wrlfc. So far the evidence is against you and you could find the neighbour being rebanded to band B. That would make you really popular!

See if you can find out how much those houses sold for in 1991 and go from there.

Zebedeee

sophiedb

simonauty wrote: »

can anyone help? we are in council tax band 'F' ALL the other houses on our street are either B'C'D OR E

I was about to ask a very similar question on behalf of my parents, however their house was built before most of the others in their road and has a very different sq footage and size of garden. Very few are of the same vintage and plot size.

There are a few other Fs in their road, which we are trying to match up against Google Earth to see whether these are the older or extended houses too, plus the size of the plot as a whole. If there is a close match or two, then they might appeal, but at the moment my dad is more paranoid about being put up to G!

Good luck

Sophie

exvoperson

Zebedeee wrote: »

Be very careful with this one, wrlfc. So far the evidence is against you and you could find the neighbour being rebanded to band B. That would make you really popular!

See if you can find out how much those houses sold for in 1991 and go from there.

Zebedeee

One further bit of advice on this case. Check to see if the house banded as A has any banding history ( click on the address of the property on the VOA website) If it was reduced to A from b in the past this would suggest there was evidence to do this and the fact that the others were not reduced suggests they were the 'consequentials' which should have, but were not reduced. But be careful!

exvoperson

vivatifosi wrote: »

Hi peanuckle,

The fact that the other side is a tenant should not, AFAIK, make a difference. The fact that the previous tenant in your side used to use their front room as a bedroom may well have implied that your home is worth more. Make sure that the VOA is aware of this.

In terms of when a rebanding takes effect, if the list is corrected rather than amended due to a change in circumstances (eg a motorway has been built next door), this should be backdated to when the listing came into effect. You would then receive a refund for overpayment for the amount of time that you have lived there.

The difference here may be that the next door property is occupied as a tied farm workers cottage and has been treated as agricultural. Farms with a large amount of land have a discount applied to them as you have to assume they are sold on the open market with the land and this could depress the value of the house. The opposite is true when you have a house with one or two acres which could be worth more.

gatita

Can anyone give me any idea how long they take to reply to a request to be re banded?
I submitted a request about 3 weeks ago, but haven't heard a thing.