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

marcey_2

i have moved in my property since 2001 and now i finally discovered that my band is to high. Just by luck really.
I should be a C instead of D. i called the council office and they agreed with me.
i would like to get a back dated refund as have been overpaid for 7 years now! I read somewhere that i had to apply within 6 months which i didn't know. Does anyone has an excuse which i can use so i will get my back refund anyway. Thanks

Zebedeee

marcey wrote: »

i have moved in my property since 2001 and now i finally discovered that my band is to high. Just by luck really.
I should be a C instead of D. i called the council office and they agreed with me.
i would like to get a back dated refund as have been overpaid for 7 years now! I read somewhere that i had to apply within 6 months which i didn't know. Does anyone has an excuse which i can use so i will get my back refund anyway. Thanks

marcey, you need to get the VOA to agree with you and reband you. Once they do this you should get your refund. The council cannot change your band, it is up to the VOA. Request a review of your band (you can do this online, over the phone or by letter) and then you will have a clearer idea of where you stand.

HTH!

Zebedeee

ChrissyL

I appealed for rebanding in October last year and was told that this was null and void as I moved into the house in 1995 and had 6 months to make a claim. All of the houses (exact same as my own) in my Estate are band E and I am band F. I lodged an appeal in early November by writing to the Assessor, but heard nothing. I subsequently followed this up with a letter a few weeks ago and have now had a letter from the Valuations Appeal Panel asking if I want to provide a written appeal, an oral appeal or withdraw.

I was planning on a written appeal - can anyone who has gone through this process give me any pointers?? Your help would be much appreciated.

anteater

ChrissyL wrote: »

I was planning on a written appeal - can anyone who has gone through this process give me any pointers?? Your help would be much appreciated.

I would definitely go for a written. I know a lot of people on here have been successful with oral representations, but my mum did this and was unsuccessful. The VOA didn't take the full details of the case - only wanted responses to specific questions so she wasn't able to make all the points she wanted to. If you write, you have the opportunity to include house price & comparable property evidence so you can present your case in full.

marcey_2

Zebedeee wrote: »

marcey, you need to get the VOA to agree with you and reband you. Once they do this you should get your refund. The council cannot change your band, it is up to the VOA. Request a review of your band (you can do this online, over the phone or by letter) and then you will have a clearer idea of where you stand.

HTH!

Zebedeee

HI, I have contact VOA already and they advised me that i am paying too much as they made a mistake. They advised me to write into the council for the refund. my question was do you think that they will backdate the refund to 7 years ago when i moved in my property?

Thanks

Zebedeee

marcey wrote: »

HI, I have contact VOA already and they advised me that i am paying too much as they made a mistake. They advised me to write into the council for the refund. my question was do you think that they will backdate the refund to 7 years ago when i moved in my property?

Thanks

So, have the VOA actually changed your band? You can check this on the VOA website if you haven't done so already. It should also show a 'date effective' and this will dictate how big your refund will be, ie. if they have put the date as the date you moved in you should get a refund of the amount you have overpaid. When you know this you could ring the council and ask them when you will be getting your cheque, and for how much. Some councils are quicker than others at getting round to it!

Zebedeee

marcey_2

i have checked the voa site and it still shows as D instead C. They however advised me for a refund i need to contact the council and not the VOA. So i guess the VOA does not take into consideration that i moved into this property about 7 years ago. what do you reckon ?

Zebedeee

marcey wrote: »

i have checked the voa site and it still shows as D instead C. They however advised me for a refund i need to contact the council and not the VOA. So i guess the VOA does not take into consideration that i moved into this property about 7 years ago. what do you reckon ?

Well, it is true that the council are the ones responsible for actually giving you your money back, however they won't do this until they are notified by the VOA that your band has been changed. You can ring the council tax department and ask them if they have had this notification yet. Out of interest, have you had it in writing from the VOA that they are changing your band?

If it can be shown that your property is in the wrong band, as you have, the VOA should reband your no matter how long you have lived there. Often tho', its not that simple and they would rather fight to the death than reband you. You would think they were paying you out of their own pockets! It looks like you have had an easy ride so far.;)

Zebedeee

marcey_2

Zebedeee wrote: »

Well, it is true that the council are the ones responsible for actually giving you your money back, however they won't do this until they are notified by the VOA that your band has been changed. You can ring the council tax department and ask them if they have had this notification yet. Out of interest, have you had it in writing from the VOA that they are changing your band?

If it can be shown that your property is in the wrong band, as you have, the VOA should reband your no matter how long you have lived there. Often tho', its not that simple and they would rather fight to the death than reband you. You would think they were paying you out of their own pockets! It looks like you have had an easy ride so far.;)

Zebedeee

thanks for your reply, i only spoke to VOA on the phone and the lady said they will have to investigate the matter first which takes about 8 weeks. However she looked at the other similair properties in my area and they all had a lower band so she said thats something is wrong here . i just need to insist that i would like to have it back dated as i am entitled to it i guess.

Youngy

Can anyone provide any concrete info on the process for reclaiming the interest on overpayments? We have successfully claimed back £3500 in overpayments and are now pursuing the interest (circa £700 by our calculations) We are hitting hurdles at every step.
After initially writing to our local council we were put onto the divisional VOA office who then put us onto the VOA CEO office in London. We have now had a letter back from the CEO office Customer Service team, saying we are not eligible for the interest as they do not see the local office has made any 'serious error'. And saying that the banding went unchallenged for 14yrs with insufficient evidence provided by us at the initial banding.

Given that we were succesfully rebanded down a band retrospectively I am at a loss to why they still feel there is no 'serious error' enough to warrant paying us the interest.

Can anyone who has succesfully reclaimed the interest provide any advice please?

Many thanks